When he arrived for a fee in the region of 60M the season after helping Madrid win the La Decima to take up the No 7 jersey at Old Trafford, a lot of fans saw this as the big name signing United had longed for in recent times to take its place among the elites like Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich. However, the Argentine despite a good start to the season including an exquisite goal against Leicester City has endured an underwhelming debut season suffering loss of form, injuries and ended with 3 goals and 10 assists in 27 league appearances.

He went off to the Copa America seeking to rediscover his form, but outside one noteworthy game in the semi-finals and getting injured in the final, this was not the Di Maria that lit up Europe two seasons earlier. Questions however have been asked about his future at United after just one season. If the rumor mill is to be believed, the deal to PSG is done with personal terms agreed upon, though the player has insisted in recent times that he is staying put. With the arrival of Memphis Depay and the resurgence of Ashley Young under LVG, this has further heightened the rumored departure.

There is however no denying the fact that having won all club honors in his 4yr stint with Madrid including a man of the match performance in the Champions league final, he is as world class as they come and has the potential to lead United to a title winning second season. On many occasions when the talismanic Lionel Messi failed to come to the party for Argentina at the knock-out stages of both the last World cup and the recently concluded Copa America, Di Maria was the team’s most influential player. For the record fee with which he was signed, it is understandable that United fans expect more from him in terms of goals and performances but it is noteworthy that goals have never been his strength, he scored only 6 La Liga goals in his debut season and 8 goals in all competitions the following season but his consistency and performances in big games stood him out.

Whilst United may be keen to cash in on him now that there is still interest rather than wait another season where if he fails his value would drop but with the likes of Schweinsteiger and Depay bringing additional quality to the team, giving Di Maria another season to justify his price tag may just be the sensible thing to do.

Valdes going, going, good bye: The social media ran amok following Louis Van Gaal’s comments regarding Victor’s Valdes future at Old Trafford, in his words ‘does not follow our philosophy and refused to play a second team game’.

Having suffered a cruciate ligament injury in his final year at Barcelona, which led to his move to Monaco failing, Louis Van Gaal handed him a chance to resurrect his career despite United already having De Gea and the likes of long time No2 Anders Lindegaard and Ben Amos. It is not an alien concept to allow recuperating players play with the reserves in their bid to regain fitness, it is a strong philosophy of LVG as he did same with virtually every United player who suffered an injury and was out for a while. Van Gaal has proven to be ruthless in his managerial dealings as evident with his latest sale of Van Persie, so when he says ‘Jump’, he only expects to get a response on ‘How high’ and where the player feels he can’t shape into his tactics, the only way is out.

Whilst some may argue that he should not have made it public, there is only one loser in this episode and that is Valdes, with United seeking to add him as an option in the Otamendi deal or shipping him off to another club at a sum and cutting cost on his huge salary, LVG has made a stern but just decision here and everyone in camp now knows that you don’t cross the boss.

- See more at: http://thequaintmag.com/2015/07/making-a-case-for-angel-di-maria/#sthash.5UVGbmS8.dpuf