Football Express News decided to award one unlucky Premier League player the Flop of the Season award and it went to Manchester United’s………………Angel Di Maria.
Without question, the two most talked about stars who could be winners of this unfortunate award – are Mario Balotelli and Radamel Falcao.
Liverpool striker Balotelli, bought for £16m, paid allegedly £110,000 a week, has been wondering around for the Merseyside club this season, failing to hit double figures and establish himself back on English soil.
Secondly, Radamel Falcao, a goal scoring machine for AS Monaco and Atletico Madrid prior to his loan move to United, where he was allegedly on in excess of £200,000 a week.
Let’s not forget Erik Lamela of Tottenham Hotspur, who has had another stinker at White Hart Lane.
Our reasons for not awarding it to Falcao are based on a bad knee injury he suffered last season, after which he has looked a pale shadow of his best, when he was once of the best number nine’s in the world.
Our selection for flop of the year, however does go to another Manchester United player, who has pipped Balotelli to the prize. The player who we feel had the biggest expectation was Angel Di Maria.
Di Maria was bought from Real Madrid for £59.7m, a British record, and United fans expected a player with bags of pace and no little skill to score his fair share of goals and this has just not happened.
We do accept there he has made 10 assists this season, where Chelsea’s Cesc Fabregas has only had more, but from a Champions League Winner and World Cup Finalist only a year previous, we at FEN would expect so much more.
Di Maria has not started a league game for United since March 9 against Arsenal, when he was sent off and appeared in 27 league matches in all, scoring just three goals.
Not enough goals or appearances, for someone allegedly fit, and coming with that reputation and price tag.
Rumours are abound, that Van Gaal is already looking to offload the player to Paris St Germain, and try to regain some of that outlay, time will tell.
But for now, Angel, you are the FEN Flop of the Season.