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Angel Di Maria: The Argentine could wave goodbye to United, but will still be a huge coup for PSG

  By O-Posts Team | July 15, 2024 - 20:58 | , , , , ,
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In the midst of the excitement borne out of the frenzy of free spending that has landed Manchester United Bastian Schweinsteiger and Morgan Schneiderlin, there is some warning to be found in the tale of Angel Di Maria that big reputations partnered with big fees will not always be the formula for success. A year since United shelled out a British record sum of £59.7 million for Di Maria, it seems that fresh interest from Paris St Germain may end his short-lived time in England.

Louis Van Gaal may be reluctant to admit his time with the winger, who was the headline of his first transfer window in charge, is up after just one season but the Dutchman, who has given indications to his ruthless streak by flogging his countryman Robin Van Persie to Fenerbahce, will appreciate that it is business.

Van Gaal’s total summer outlay has neared £70 million with the signings of Memphis Depay and Matteo Darmian as well as Schweinsteiger and Schneiderlin, and with the potential of more to come, a reported £43 million sale will be an important recoup of funds. United’s eye-watering revenue streams means Financial Fair Play regulations are never a concern at Old Trafford but a chance to balance the books will be welcomed as they look to fund moves for PSG’s Edinson Cavani, possibly as a direct swap for Di Maria, and Valencia’s Nicolas Otamendi.

PSG meanwhile have benefitted from the relaxation in the FFP ruling that prevented them from beating United to Di Maria’s signature last year. UEFA sanctions handed to the French champions for breaking the governing bodies’ rules on finances have been identified by Nasser Al Khelaifi, PSG’s Qatari owner, as the main reason behind their failure to lure Di Maria directly from Madrid.

The announcement from UEFA president Michel Platini in May about the easing of those restrictions has permitted PSG to enter the market with the same aggression that previously snared David Luiz, Thiago Silva, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Lucas Moura, Marquinhos and Cavani as their ambitious owners, the Qatari Investment Authority, sought to establish their club as a European powerhouse. Their refreshed spending powers has reportedly allowed them to offer Di Maria a package of the same £200,000-a-week wages he is currently on at United.

Their work in this summer’s market has so far been slow, spending £7 million on Serge Aurier from Toulouse and £6.6 million on Eintracht Frankfurt’s Kevin Trapp, deals offset by the £9 million sale of Yohann Cabaye to Crystal Palace. But a move for Di Maria will be a statement of intent in-keeping with their desire to make it deeper into the Champions League than the quarter-final stage that has so far been an impasse for the club under Carlo Ancelotti and Laurent Blanc.

Di Maria of course won that competition with Real Madrid only 14 months ago and was a vital part of his country’s run to the World Cup final just a month later before injury robbed him of the chance to compete against Germany in the Maracanã showpiece. He moved to United as La Liga’s leading assist maker and as the player Cristiano Ronaldo personally lobbied Florentino Perez not to sell.

Man of the match in the 4-1 triumph over rivals Atletico as Real brought home La Decima and a big part of the 2012 La Liga championship under Jose Mourinho having fought back from a difficult start to the season, Di Maria’s stock was extremely high. His genius apparent, Van Gaal could justify all of the money it took to buy him.

Back then, that is. Di Maria ended his season of struggle at United with just one start in the last eight games after getting sent off for pulling the referee’s shirt in an FA Cup tie with Arsenal. Before then hamstring injuries had blocked a promising start in which he was named player of the month for September and illustrated his vast talent with an audacious chipped goal against Leicester. Off the field, there was also the misfortunate case of his house being attacked by men with scaffolding poles.

Di Maria witnessed the incident with his wife and daughter who probably would have met with relief Van Gaal’s announcement in May that he would be interested in selling the winger if he asked to leave. United’s raft of new arrivals is likely to mean there will be a shift to a 4-3-3 and no room for Di Maria in the midfield role he prefers, leaving the position on the right-flank of an attacking trio where he will face competition from Juan Mata.

Though with 11 assists last term he was United’s creative player and he remains for Van Gaal a vital asset who can dictate the pace of a game with his intelligence and guile, as he did in the away victory over Liverpool in which he produced a delicate lofted pass for Mata to dispatch the game’s winning goal. He is still the player that can produce pivotal performances of the kind that guided Argentina past Paraguay in the semi-finals of the Copa America with a 6-1 win.

Though he limped off with injury in the final defeat to Chile, his two goals and an assist in the demolition of Paraguay posed a dilemma for Van Gaal as much as it would have attracted PSG.

With the Dutchman toying with the temptation to try and find a way of fitting Di Maria into his side and PSG looking for a replacement for Ezequiel Lavezzi who is set on a return to Italy, there are many questions to answer but with a hugely talented player determined to get his club career back on track at the centre of them all.

 

Written by Adam Gray

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Morgan Schneiderlin: The latest signing in a window that allows United fans to forget about Glazer

  By O-Posts Team | July 13, 2024 - 20:49 | , , , ,
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It is slightly over a decade since the Glazer family purchased a controlling stake in Manchester United from J.P McManus and John Magnier, before a month later completing the takeover and loading the club with debts in excess of £500 million which they have spent the next ten years servicing.

Over £700 million has so far been spent on bank charges and interest fees whilst United fans have paid for it with gradual ticket price rises and the controversial mandatory purchase scheme for cup matches.

Behind that unsavoury takeover, the catalyst for the protest club FC United and years of chronic under-investment that eventually led to Sir Alex Ferguson’s exit and a malaise under David Moyes, was a certain Ed Woodward, who in 2005 was a banker who facilitated the high-interest hedge-fund loans that allowed the Glazers to gain control.

Woodward was given the role of executive vice chairman after David Gill’s exit in 2012 and, after supporters called for his sacking following a disastrous 2013 transfer market under the guise of Moyes, has now been promoted to flavour of the month for directing an off-season that has seen United sign Memphis Depay, Matteo Darmian, Bastian Schweinsteiger and most recently Morgan Schneiderlin.

With the chequebook being waved about, it is currently impossible to find any trace of the anti-Glazer sentiment that trended on Twitter for two days after the defeat to Swansea on the opening day of last season, with the huge debts and risky talk of financial reorganisation firmly on the back-burner.

Woodward and the Glazer’s marketing team deserve immense credit for the series of sponsorship deals that has boosted the club’s annual revenue to £433 million, positioning them as Europe’s third richest club according to Forbes, but the 14% drop they announced for May’s third quarter financial results has seemingly sparked the club, with the record-shattering £1.1 billion deal with Adidas in pocket, into action as they aim to once again mount genuine challenges on all fronts next season.

Following Moyes’s embarrassing failure to land Ander Herrera and the eventually panic-driven £27 million move for Marouane Fellaini two years ago, Woodward and United have acted with a conviction that delivered Juan Mata for £37 million from Chelsea, Moyes’s last signing at Old Trafford, while his successor Louis Van Gaal’s spending has now surpassed £200 million in just over a year. With both Edinson Cavani and Nicolas Otamendi being linked, there could still be more for United’s fans to get giddy about.

Last year’s acquisition of Angel Di Maria and now the recent capture of Schweinsteiger shows how United have returned to shopping for elite players while the arrival of the German, as well as the combative Schneiderlin from Southampton, has brought long-overdue maintenance to a midfield department that had been left to decay in the six years between Owen Hargreaves’s signing in 2007 and Fellaini’s move in 2013.

The announcement of both deals on the same day, for a total of £35 million, is anathema to the dithering under Moyes that led to the shambolic deadline day signing of Fellaini for £4 million more than what the Belgian would have cost earlier that window. United and Van Gaal now fly to the USA for a pre-season tour with Schneiderlin and Schweinsteiger on board after another ominous flexing of their financial muscle and the appeal of their ambitions.

Schweinsteiger will bring with him near-unparalleled experience of recent Bundesliga domination with Bayern Munich and a World Cup triumph with Germany, while Schneiderlin will also provide the nous gained by seven years with Southampton, three of which were in the Premier League.

Having signed for the Saints as an 18 year old in 2008 for £1.2 million from Strasbourg, the French midfielder stuck with the club through relegation from the Championship in his first season and the subsequent administration to lead them back up to last year’s brilliant seventh place finish. With 260 appearances to his name on the south coast, few at St Mary’s will begrudge the 25 year old the chance “to play with better players and the best manager in the world.”

Only Chelsea’s Nemanja Matic won more tackles than Schneiderlin in the top flight last term while with 2.42 interceptions per game the French international was rated above the likes of Sergio Busquets. He will add much-required bite and discipline to United’s midfield and he is also an underrated distributor of the ball, tallying 52.9 passes per game last term and finding a teammate once every 95 seconds.

Already established as one of the best holding midfielders in England, last season was the continuation of the form that saw him complete the most tackles and make the most interceptions in the 2012/13 Premier League season as he picked up both fans’ player of the year and player’s player of the year awards.

There was always a feeling that amidst Southampton’s exodus of last summer, Schneiderlin was the one who had the potential to cause most damage should he too be sold. After reportedly being close to a move to Spurs last July, Ronald Koeman kept hold of his player and would see him thrive, though the Dutchman was forced to admit this week “every player has a price” after the midfielder missed Southampton’s first day of pre-season training.

Koeman looks set to bring in PSV Eindhoven’s Jordy Clasie as a replacement but unlike those who had departed St Mary’s before him, Schneiderlin’s exit could deal a fatal blow.

That is the club he leaves behind however and Schneiderlin will now prepare for his “new adventure” as the deepest-lying midfielder in the 4-3-3 system that Van Gaal is likely to introduce. He will provide the willing legs for Schweinsteiger, protection for Herrera and Juan Mata and competition for the ageing Michael Carrick as United’s midfield now looks capable of laying the foundation of a proper title challenge.

If that comes true, expect the history of the Glazers and Woodward to be further glossed over with the tide of goodwill and fickle admiration.

 

Written by Adam Gray

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Bastian Schweinsteiger: Man United capture the imagination as well as the Bayern legend

  By O-Posts Team | July 12, 2024 - 13:23 | , , , ,
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Perhaps it was the speed of it that surprised. Even when Pep Guardiola had informed Bastian Schweinsteiger that a path out of Bayern Munich was free if he chose to take it, not many would have expected the midfielder to leave the club he has served for 17 years. But virtually out of nowhere arrived the news that Manchester United were closing on a deal to take the 30 year old to Old Trafford in what is one of this summer’s more captivating transfers.

Though Schweinsteiger will receive a significant increase in salary, signing a three-year deal worth £140,000 per week, a fee of £15 million for a player who still remains in the elite bracket is excellent business. Though Guardiola’s desire to freshen his team with his Barcelona prodigy Thiago Alcantara has accelerated Schweinsteiger’s exit, United are still getting a significant member of Germany’s World Cup winning squad of last year as well as a pivotal figure in Bayern’s last three consecutive Bundesliga triumphs.

Schweinsteiger brings with him a wealth of experience and perhaps more importantly for a team who are aiming to restore themselves as title challengers, a winning mentality as a veteran of eight Bundesliga titles, seven German Cups and one Champions League across the 536 appearances for his country’s most successful club.

He is Germany’s current captain and tasked with leading the World Champions into next year’s European Championships in France, manager Joachim Low has said how he feels the move will benefit the player.

“I know that he still has big ambitions and goals. He will face the new challenge in England as we all know, with dedication and highly-motivated” said Low, “I expect them [United] to also provide him with a further boost and incentive in terms of the European Championship in France, in which we [Germany] will rely on him and he will lead the national team.”

The number of the midfielder’s appearances and the influence he carries has gradually declined since Guardiola took over from Jupp Heynckes and introduced a more measured approach to the spine of his side, dabbling with both Phillip Lahm and David Alaba as holding-midfielders before Xabi Alonso was signed and Sebastian Rode emerged, pushing Schweinsteiger to a peripheral role.

He would start just 21 times in all competitions last year, exactly half the number he managed in 2012/13 when he was named German footballer of the year as Bayern secured a glorious treble in Heynckes’s last year at the helm.

German football magazine Kicker named him in a continent best XI that season while UEFA ranked him at seventh in their Best Player in Europe award. It is that footballer that Manchester United and Louis Van Gaal are now hoping they have got their hands on, the swashbuckling force who provided Bayern’s centre-midfield drive alongside the more reserved Javi Martinez.

Van Gaal of course knows Schweinsteiger well having coached him for two years between 2009 and 2011 and is likely, having first-hand experience of the German’s vast pedigree, to see no issue with expecting the 30 year old to assume most of United’s midfield responsibilities.

Van Gaal is also still in pursuit of Southampton’s Morgan Schneiderlin who, as the Premier League’s second best tackler last term, would add a large amount of bite in what would be a fearsome engine room when partnered alongside Schweinsteiger and Ander Herrera.

The two possible new arrivals would indicate a permanent shift to a 4-3-3 which makes sense when taking into account the signing of Memphis Depay and Van Gaal’s desperation to find a spot in which Angel Di Maria can settle having watched the Argentine struggle in his first season after making the £64 million switch from Real Madrid.

Furthermore it would also hand Van Gaal with more viable alternatives to Michael Carrick, with whom Manchester United’s best form last season came with him in the side, and the balance he offered that the Dutchman found hard to replace during the 33 year old’s time out with injury.

Of course there has to be some trepidation over the signing of a player who is now advancing into his 30’s, isn’t accustomed to a winter break and has suffered a series of recent knee and ankle problems, but Van Gaal has once again delivered in the aim of delivering world class talent and sparking the excitement in his supporters that accompanies such ambition.

Though he will be hoping that Bayern’s decision to relinquish the player amiably and without too much restraint isn’t a foreboding to another high-profile flop in the mould of Radamel Falcao or even Di Maria.

Despite the collective despair from Bayern fans over the fact they have lost one of their most loyal players, Guardiola shouldn’t have too much trouble in the post-Schweinsteiger transition given he set in motion his gradual phasing out last season. Van Gaal shouldn’t have too much trouble fitting him in either, provided the German stays free of the injuries that have dogged him since 2011.

“Bastian wanted to do something new at the end of his career” said Bayern’s chief executive Karl Heinz Rummenigge on Saturday. With Depay already secured, Matteo Darmain on his way to add defensive steel to the right-back position and possibly Schneiderlin and Valencia’s Nicolas Otamendi to follow, that “something new” is likely to be very successful if the right blend is found.

With their first ever German player in tow as a result of their standing as off-field behemoths, Manchester United are ready to be powerhouses on the field once again.

 

Written by Adam Gray

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Matteo Darmian: What can the Italian full-back offer Manchester United?

  By O-Posts Team | July 8, 2024 - 15:07 | , , , , , ,
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Earlier this week, Manchester United and Torino agreed a fee for Italy full back Matteo Darmian. It’s reported that the Serie A side Torino agreed to sell their prized defender for £12.7million (€18m). So let’s take a closer look at the Italian.

 

Background

Darmian was born in 1989 in Legnano, North West of Milan. He joined Milan’s youth ranks after breaking through with non-league side, Carcor.

His senior-team debut with Milan came in the Coppa Italia match against Brescia in November 2006. The 16-year-old, at the time, was introduced as a substitute for Kakha Kaladze.

Half a year later, Matteo got his first league start for the Rossoneri in the match against Udinese. He went on to feature one more time in the Coppa Italia in the 2007/2008 season. That year the young talent took the captain`s armband in the youth team.

In the summer of 2009, the Serie B side Padova loaned the youngster. Matteo enjoyed an excellent loan stint and played plenty of games that season – making 20 appearances and scoring the once.

The following season, the defender moved to Sicilian outfit Palermo. The size of the transfer fee the club had paid to secure Matteo Darmian was €800k.

He made a good contribution at Palermo, displaying solid defensive capabilities. The centre-half registered a total of 16 matches for Palermo in all competitions.

In the summer of 2011, Torino completed the loan of the player. A year later, Palermo sold 50 percent of Darmian’s contract to the Torino.

Coming through the ranks at International level with Italy U19 and U21’s Darmian made his senior debut in 2014. He travelled to the World Cup to Brazil and was probably the only Italian player to come out of that tournament with their head held high – he has 13 caps.

 

What can he offer Manchester United?

Matteo can offer his new club versatility; he is able to play on the left and right back positions and even central defence.

Manager Louis van Gaal is a big admirer of players able to play in various positions - this is highlighted by last summer’s acquisitions Daley Blind and Marcos Rojo. United’s squad already includes a handful of players who can play across various roles, allowing the Dutch coach to change the formation/tactic with ease.

The Italian’s arrival could lend itself to Van Gaal utilising a back three. He tried this during the early stages of last term but switched to four after United struggled to adapt. Darmian can slot into the gut-busting full-back role easily, supporting midfield from deep but also dropping to make a five-man defence when possession breaks down.

His attacking ability is just a good as his defensive. At Torino, he was the man who would be first to receive the ball as the opposition move broke down, his dynamism and creativity after this proved essential for the team.

It must be noted that the £12.7m fee is very cheap. Had Darmian been English or Spanish, I think he would have gone for at least double that figure.

With right back options Rafael and Antonio Valencia not working out for Manchester United, the fans will hope Darmian’s Torino form continues at Old Trafford – if it does, he will turn out to be an excellent signing.

 

Written by Serie A Writer

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Man United: Links with big names like Schweini reflect Van Gaal’s burning ambition

  By O-Posts Team | July 3, 2024 - 12:39 | , , , ,
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According to reports, it seems certain that Manchester United will sign at least one of Morgan Schneiderlin, Bastian Schweinsteiger or Sergio Ramos this summer, as Louis Van Gaal prepares for his second season in charge of the English Premier League club.

The Dutch manager was set to retire from professional football before joining United, so that he could enjoy the benefits of family life away from the game. Instead, he will likely reach a milestone of three decades in professional management whilst an Old Trafford employee.

Van Gaal has already spoken about falling in love with the culture surrounding the game in England, praising the patience and loyalty of the fans and clearly relishing the opportunity to work in the world’s most popular and intensely scrutinized league.

But the 63 year-old will be desperate to preserve a career record that has seen him win a league title at every club he has managed. To do so at a club as steeped in history as United and particularly given the spectacular fall from grace experienced under his predecessor David Moyes, could arguably be his greatest achievement.

This is what makes the links to Schweinsteiger, Schneiderlin and Ramos so interesting: it reflects Van Gaal’s burning desire to wrest power in the English game away from Jose Mourinho at Chelsea, whilst supplanting the growing threat of Arsenal and Manchester City.

Ramos and Schweinsteiger would make for headline-grabbing acquisitions, both being highly decorated players. They have each won World Cups, European Cups and enjoy icon status at two of the biggest sporting institutions on the planet in Real Madrid and Bayern Munich respectively.

By comparison, Schneiderlin is yet to win any silverware and has been only a recent revelation at Southampton, a club that has enjoyed an eye-catching return to the English Premier League after time spent in the lower tiers of English football.

His importance to Southampton’s resurgence was recognized by France manager Didier Deschamps, who rewarded the 25 year-old by taking him to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

A reported price tag of £25 million pales in comparison to the valuation of Ramos, who could cost United between £40-70 million depending on which newspaper or internet article you read. Schweinsteiger, meanwhile, would command considerable wages in light his own illustrious CV.

The decision Van Gaal makes over which player to sign will give insight into the nature of the project he is building in Manchester.

Both Ramos and Schweinsteiger are ready built, battle-hardened veterans who will bring leadership quality and experience to a squad that seemed brittle despite massive investment at the beginning of last season.

Schweinsteiger is a player Van Gaal particularly trusts. They worked together with great success during the latter’s spell in charge of Bayern Munich, where Van Gaal convinced the wide midfielder to move into the middle of the park.

“Schweinsteiger never played there, so after two weeks of training sessions and two matches, he felt he could do more than ever,” the former Ajax boss told FIFA.com back in 2013.

Van Gaal all but admitted that the manner in which United faded last season – unable to maintain a title challenge – was the result of his players being unfamiliar and fatigued with his notoriously rigorous training methods. Schweinsteiger’s career was transformed by those very methods and in that respect he is the perfect candidate to walk into the current United squad and lead by example.

Schneiderlin, meanwhile, is a player who needs to be moulded and re-educated. He is five years younger than Schweinsteiger and about to enter a crucial phase of his professional career.

He represents an investment for the future, rather than a solution for the immediate present: there is no guarantee that he will be as effective as he has been at Southampton (Maroune Fellaini’s gradual adjustment after moving from Everton is testament to this).

Given Van Gaal has previously flirted with retirement, if he were to sign Schweinsteiger it might suggest that he is eager to win silverware immediately, rather than set himself for a long haul in Manchester. The same logic could be applied to a potential move for Ramos.

There is no doubt that both of these players would have an immediate and positive impact at United, potentially inspiring the club to silverware. Their reputation as winners is, after all, the reason they are so highly valued.

Schneiderlin however has youth on his side and it would be fascinating to see his brand of midfield play fostered by a club with a reputation for expansive, aggressive football.

Whether Van Gaal – or his employers – has the patience and energy for such a ploy is the pertinent question.

 

Written by Chris Paraskevas

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David De Gea: Can he live up to the price tag?

  By O-Posts Team | July 2, 2024 - 19:25 | , , , , ,
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Manchester United goalkeeper David De Gea’s proposed move to Real Madrid looks set to drag on as the clubs remain at odds over the financial details of the deal. With pre-season just around the corner, the former Atletico Madrid man was not expecting to have to report back for duty after previously saying his goodbye to staff at the club’s Carrington training ground.

Spanish newspapers are reporting the transfer as inevitable but reports in Manchester have suggested that there is still a chance that he could remain at the English club. If the move does go ahead, De Gea will become the most expensive shot-stopper in La Liga history with a fee of €35-40m expected.

This would smash the previous record of €16m that his old club paid to Benfica last summer for the services of Jan Oblak. He would become the second most expensive keeper in world football behind Gianluigi Buffon.

So, does the 24-year-old deserve such a huge price tag? As always, it’s hard to tell just by looking at the stats; for example, a tally of 11 clean sheets in the 2014/15 season does not look that impressive when compared to the 23 achieved by Claudio Bravo at Barcelona or the 21 recorded by Manuel Neuer at Bayern Munich.

However, when you consider that De Gea made 78 saves compared to the 59 made by Bravo or the 48 made by Neuer, you realise that the Manchester United player was much busier than his rivals.

Much of this could be put down the relative weakness of the Manchester United defence when compared to Bayern Munich or Barcelona, or the more attacking nature of the Premier League. However, his figures are almost identical to those of the man he is due to replace.

At Real Madrid, Iker Casillas kept 12 clean sheets and made 77 saves, his save per goal ratio was 2.20 compared to 2.17 for the Man United player, and their goals conceded and distribution stats were virtually identical

Figure 1: Stats courtesy of Squawka’s Comparison Matrix

The conclusion that can be drawn from this is that De Gea is currently performing at the same level as a world class keeper who is clearly experiencing a decline in performance at the age of 34.

However, he has yet to reach the level of some of his contemporaries who are currently playing at their peak. Given his age, and with a high quality defence in front of him, it seems reasonable to suggest that De Gea can only get better.

From that point of view, the move is a sensible one for the team from Madrid, and if he does progress to the level expected and remains at the club for many years, then the price tag will certainly be justified.

 

Written by Neil Morris

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English Premier League: Can you name the league winners’ starting XIs from 1993?

  By O-Posts Team | June 24, 2024 - 00:05 | , , , , , ,
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Robin van Persie: The Flying Dutchman on the verge of an exit should he fail to convince Van Gaal

  By O-Posts Team | May 14, 2024 - 17:35 | , , , ,
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Since his acrimonious £23 million move from Arsenal, Robin Van Persie has scored 3 times for Manchester United in the five games he has played against his former club.

This Sunday afternoon, in what will be a significant game for both clubs in the bid to avoid an August play-off for the Champions League, he will be especially motivated to produce his best form against the club he served for 8 seasons not only for pride in face of the vitriol he will inevitably draw from visiting supporters still bitter over his exit, but also because he finds himself standing nervously on the precipice at Old Trafford.

A campaign in which he has netted just 10 goals from 28 appearances has culminated with reports that his manager Louis Van Gaal may be willing to sell the striker in the summer. Only 2 of those goals have come in 2015 and his strike rate has elevated to 208.5 minutes per goal from 120.1 when he fired to United to the league title in 2012/13 and the 132 he was running at during his season under David Moyes. The amount of chances he has created for others has also declined rapidly, from the 72 opportunities he carved out during his title-winning campaign, he has made just 27 this term.

The comparisons are of course skewed by the 38 games he managed 2 seasons ago when he won that title, hitting 26 goals in the process, but the Van Persie of now is a shadow of the one unleashed in Sir Alex Ferguson’s final season. Injuries have begun to take hold, restricting him to only 18 starts under Moyes’s doomed reign and while Van Gaal has been able to utilise him more, the Dutchman has failed to get him firing regularly again.

The manager has tried desperately, often moving his captain Wayne Rooney to a deeper midfield role to fit Van Persie in as the lone striker, but to no avail. Vital contributions came in games with Southampton and Liverpool in December but after a poor run of form in which included dropped points at Tottenham Hotspur, Stoke and West Ham, Van Gaal may have viewed the injury his striker picked up against Swansea as a blessing in disguise as he witnessed Van Persie leave the Liberty Stadium on crutches in February.

United strung together 6 straight wins following that defeat in Wales and Rooney, restored to a main striker, played an integral role to the upturn in form, scoring twice. Anaemic attacking displays resulted in Chelsea and Everton breaking that run and Van Persie returned to the line-up for the game with West Bromwich Albion, only to produce a rusty display which saw him miss a penalty as well as produce a series of fine saves from goalkeeper Boaz Myhill. The game followed a theme similar to the loss at Swansea; of United dominating but being let down by strikers failing to take their chances.

“We are creating chances all the time, but we have to improve our finishing” was Van Gaal’s verdict after the loss to West Brom and it seems like Van Persie, as well as Radamel Falcao who is unlikely to have his loan spell from Monaco converted to a permanent one, could be a fall-guy as the manager clears room for a summer revamp.

Exciting 21 year old winger Memphis Depay has already been snapped up for around £25 million from PSV Eindhoven and Van Persie will be hoping he will get the chance to play alongside his international team-mate by earning a one year extension to his current deal that expires in 2016.

It is customary practice at Old Trafford to offer players in their 30s deals of only one year and Van Persie, who is 32 in August, wants to stay, though he is not clear where exactly his future lies. “It is not up to me,” said the striker back in January. “For the moment I am staying here for 18 months. That is it really. I can’t look into the future. I don’t know what is going to happen after that. We shall have to wait and see.”

The Dutchman missed the 1-2 away win at Crystal Palace at the weekend and now only has 2 more games, the meeting with Arsenal as well as a trip to Hull City on the season’s final day, to prove his case to Van Gaal.

Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski, Real Madrid’s Gareth Bale and Edinson Cavani of PSG have all been linked to add some bite to United’s attack as Van Gaal prepares to splash his gargantuan cash reserves as the club return to the Champions League while aiming to once again challenge for the Premier League title. Van Gaal may decide there is to be no room for Van Persie and his £220,000-plus wages and relinquish his fellow countryman.

Few would have foreseen Van Persie marginalised by Van Gaal barely 10 months since the pair high-fived each other at the side of the pitch in Salvador as the striker led his manager’s carefully-crafted plan to demolish Spain at the World Cup. The vast majority of onlookers viewed that as the prelude of what was to come in Manchester, the restoration of Van Persie to the beast that drove United to their most recent league title under the manager he once said he would “walk on fire” for.

Driven only by results, Van Persie is unlikely to find the same overriding loyalty forthcoming from Van Gaal. That is if he doesn’t haunt his former club once again.

 

Written by Adam Gray

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