You can look at players like Angel di Maria and Radamel Falcao and say that they are bona fide superstars.
There are indeed that. But their status comes from their performances at previous clubs. If you judged them on this season alone you’d say that Di Maria was a promising but inconsistent player. As for Falcao, well he wouldn’t even merit much of a mention.
We think that they will eventually do the business for their club. But there has been a worrying run of poor transfers for Manchester United which is dragging the club downwards.
You can’t keep spending top dollar and not getting top performers before something eventually has to give.
Wilfried Zaha, Marouane Fellaini, Juan Mata, Shinji Kagawa, Nick Powell, Chris Smalling, Alex Buttner, Angelo Henriquez, Ashley Young, Bebe, Anders Lindegaard and Phil Jones – that list represents the majority of Manchester United’s signings over the last few years (before Louis arrived). They cost an awful lot of money but they simply haven’t brought enough to the party.
If even half of those players had been unbridled success stories then Manchester United might not be scrapping for 4th place right now. Somewhere along the line the transfer policy has gone wrong.
In truth, you would have to go back to 2012 and RvP for the last truly excellent Manchester United purchase – and he has turned out to be more of quick fix than a long term investment. At 31, he no longer looks anything like the player who joined the club.
There have been other successes too. David de Gea, signed in 2011, is one of the best in the world in his position. And Javier Hernandez did a good job in his first couple of years.
But the rot has to stop or else Manchester United will simply buckle under the weight of mediocrity in the squad.
The baton has now been passed to the latest generation of signings. None of Angel di Maria, Marcos Rojo, Radamel Falcao, Daley Blind or Luke Shaw have been a revelation at the club so far. But they need to prove their worth in the second half of the season or Manchester Untied could find themselves out in the cold.
