There has been much speculation surrounding Manchester United’s attempts to sign players from La Liga over the last few weeks. In particular Manchester United have been the subject of intense hype about their reported interest in Real Madrid forward Angel di Maria.
It had just been regarded as unsubstantiated gossip but now that a broadsheet has got involved you would imagine that there is some substance to the story. The Guardian goes as far as to say that Di Maria is Manchester United’s top summer target.
They reported late last night that Manchester United are indeed tracking the Real Madrid winger and that Van Gaal has the forward towards the top of his shopping list this summer. They say:
Ángel di María heads up Louis van Gaal’s Manchester United wish list
While United would be expected to propose an initial bid of around £40m, Real’s interest in Monaco’s James Rodríguez, who was Colombia’s star performer in Brazil, means they may be prepared to listen to an offer in the region of £45m (€56.5m) for the 26-year-old who is contracted until 2018, having signed a fresh deal two years ago.
With Real Madrid reportedly planning to buy James Rodriguez you can easily imagine that Di Maria will be offloaded this summer.
But we have said it before and will maintain that we don’t think he’s worth that sort of money. He can be explosive and score brilliant goals but, apart from last season, he has shown the sort of inconsistency that we strongly associate with Manchester United’s Nani.
And anyone who has watched The World Cup will know that Di Maria still draws polemic responses.
He got the winner against Switzerland but gave the ball away on an almost laughable number of occasions and made so many mistakes during the 90 minutes it was hard to comprehend how he got in the team at all. His performance against Belgium was similarly erratic.
He does have a decent amount of pace and that is a vital commodity in The Premier league.
And after his showing at The World Cup Van Gaal has our massive respect – if he thinks that Di Maria is worth all that money then he’s perhaps worth a shout. But we certainly wouldn’t be spending £40m plus of Manchester United’s coffers on the player if we had control of the purse strings. We would sooner spend it on David Luiz….
Let’s see Di Maria in action. Manchester United fans: excited about this one?
