Manchester United made some grave mistakes during their first few years following Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement, most notably in the transfer market.
Both David Moyes and Louis van Gaal failed to live up to the high expectations demanded of them by the Old Trafford faithful and their case wasn’t helped with their poor decisions in terms of trying to improve their respective teams.
The Dutchman spent vast sums of money on the likes of Ángel Di María, Memphis Depay, Morgan Schneiderlin and Marcos Rojo without as much of a sniff of Premier League glory and all of these players struggled massively under the weight of expectation.
One of his worst buys however was that of Italian full back Matteo Darmian, who arrived in the summer of 2015 for a fee of £12.9m and on the surface, it looked as though it could be a shrewd signing by the club. He was only 25 and having impressed at Torino, making over 150 appearances for the Serie A side while also gaining 13 caps for Italy during his spell in Turin.
Unfortunately, Darmian couldn’t replicate his form in England as he turned out to be a massive disappointment.
How much did Matteo Darmian cost Manchester United?
He did enjoy a solid run in the team during his first couple of seasons at the Red Devils, playing 68 matches under Van Gaal and Jose Mourinho, with both managers deploying him as their first choice right back.
Darmian won winners medals in the FA Cup, League Cup and Europa League during this time, and it looked as though Mourinho could finally be the man to deliver consistent success that the fans had craved since Fergie retired.
It wasn’t to be and Darmian saw his opportunities limited under the Portuguese coach, making just 17 appearances in all competitions during 2017/2018 and when he was sacked halfway through the following campaign, Ole Gunnar Solsjkaer had different ideas of what he wanted to achieve, and the Italian international departed for Parma at the end of that season.
His spell wasn’t exactly productive, and writer Tom McDermott even described him as “terrible” during his second season, and there’s no doubt he was a colossal waste of money.
Indeed, across his 216-week spell in Manchester, Darmian rinsed the club for £22.3m overall, split between his transfer fee and the £9.4m he earned in wages during that time, which is money that could have been better spent elsewhere.
Erik ten Hag looks as though he knows what he is doing in the transfer market though and hopefully, big money mistakes like these won't be quite as commonplace under the former Ajax boss going forward.