Anyone who reads this column on a regular basis will know that the behaviour of Angel di Maria at Manchester United has left us with a very bad taste in the mouth.
Louis van Gaal isn’t everyone’s cup of tea of course.
And many disagreed with his decision to bench the Argentine for large swathes of the second half of the season.
But LvG runs a strict meritocracy at Manchester United and not even a player of Di Maria’s status should expect to get in the team on profile alone.
Looking at the way Mata and Young performed in 2015 they deserved to start and Di Maria simply didn’t have the stomach for the fight.
Now, after just a year at the club, he is off.
Let’s remind you of what he said when he joined Manchester United:
“I am absolutely delighted to be joining Manchester United. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in Spain and there were a lot of clubs interested in me, but United is the only club that I would have left Real Madrid for.
“Louis van Gaal is a fantastic coach with a proven track record of success and I am impressed by the vision and determination everyone has to get this club back to the top – where it belongs. I now just cannot wait to get started.”
Di Maria: Sycophant
Obviously there was little genuinity about this statement and we wait with fascination to see what he’s going to say when he is unveiled at PSG.
Because he will have to pick his words particularly carefully to avoid being labelled an outright hypocrite.
He didn’t enjoy his first season at Manchester United.
But we believe that he owed the fans at least one more season in Manchester.
But the very least he can do is to be honest in his sentiments when joining a club for so much money.
To say he would only join Manchester United and then leave a year later smacks of the mercenary nature that we suspect of too many footballers in the modern game.
