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Very specific football question No.1: How much did Falcao and Di Maria cost Man Utd per bad touch?
August 2014 seems like a long time ago now - about a year. And if we knew then what we know today, there are things we’d all have done differently.
Personally, I regret buying those jeans from Top Man. They were too skinny and I couldn’t pull them off, in either sense. For Louis Van Gaal, incidentally one of the few Premier League managers with the style-confidence to don skinny jeans, there may also be some regrets about an ill-advised shopping spree this time last year.
Radamel Falcao and Angel Di Maria arrived at Old Trafford as bona-fide world class stars, but they leave with their reputations tarnished and United’s bank balance depleted. Di Maria’s £44.3m transfer to Paris Saint-Germain represents a £15m loss on the player, while Falcao was signed on a £6m one-year loan. But that tells just half the story. Take into account hefty signing-on fees and eye-watering wages (£265,000 a week for Falcao and not much less for Di Maria) and United are left looking at a conservative £50m spend on the two players for one year.
And what a year it wasn’t. The pair smashed in a total of four goals each, at a cost of more than £6m per goal. Even Di Maria’s strike in an FA Cup match at Yeovil.
But we can find better value than that. The South American duo will not be remembered for their goals, but for their mishaps. Like Di Maria sending a cross looping over a crossbar at Swansea or Falcao falling over at Selhurst Park.
By examining the duo’s Premier League statistics from last season, we can learn that Falcao was guilty of 44 official examples of “bad control” in his 26 games (12 from the bench), while Di Maria made 30 similar boo-boos in his 20 starts and seven substitute appearances.
Add it all up, and the figures are much more palatable reading for LVG than the pair’s goals-per-game cost. For each bad touch by either player, United paid just £675,000. That’s not including dispossessions, misplaced passes or shots off target.
But still, there’s so much variety there. Falcao bursting into the penalty area and watching the ball bounce off his shin: £675,000. Di Maria collecting a pinpoint pass from Michael Carrick that rolls over his feet: £675,000. Falcao losing his marker with a sublime piece of movement and being hit on the chin with the ball: £675,000. Di Maria making an expansive pointing gesture and then slide-ruling it against his own leg: £675,000. It’s a small price to pay for the pleasure these moments brought to fans of Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea and many others.
And this money didn’t disappear into the ether. It’s still out there, feeling good about itself. Some of it resides in Monaco, some went to Real Madrid and quite a large proportion has lined the pockets of Di Maria and Falcao. Hopefully their jeans aren’t too tight.
