Angel di Maria has been speaking about his time at Old Trafford.
The Argentine winger signed for Manchester United for a British record fee of £59.7 million from Real Madrid.
Red Devils’ fans, and the Premier League in general, had become more used to elite players leaving England, but Di Maria was a world class player arriving from the European champions ready to drive United towards a return to the Champions League and winning honours.
However, we can all agree it was a bit of a disaster.
Di Maria faded after a bright start, and lost his starting place to Ashley Young towards the end of last season, before joining Paris Saint-Germain for £44 million earlier this summer.
And now the winger has lifted the lid on what went wrong during his 12 months in Manchester.
“Van Gaal has his philosophy and it is one of the reasons why I wanted to leave Manchester United,” Di Maria told ESPN radio in Argentina.
“I made a very good start and then I got injured. Things weren’t quite working for me and Van Gaal changed my position.
“It’s difficult to adapt to Van Gaal. I had a number of bust-ups with him.”
So, the reasons behind Di Maria’s failure at United were a difference of opinion between him and Van Gaal on how football should be played, the weather, injuries, a reported house break-in at his family home and… basically nothing went right.
It was never going to work out, was it?
However, Di Maria revealed PSG manager Laurent Blanc has no plans to play him in a number of different positions, as what happened to the player at United under Van Gaal.
“I spoke to Blanc and he believes I should play in a similar position as I did at Real Madrid (the right side of a midfield three). I never believed I would get such a great reception here. It was the best presentation I’ve ever had at a club.”
“The truth is that I’m very happy that I came to PSG and to have team-mates such as (Ezequiel) Lavezzi and (Javier) Pastore.”
H/T 101 Great Goals & The Mirror.
