Angel Di Maria is overpriced, detractors of his move to Old Trafford say. His signing just papers over the cracks, when what Manchester United really need is defenders and midfielders.
With Juan Mata, Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie all in attack, do United really need to spend £59.7m on Di Maria at all?
The answer is yes, they do.
United certainly do need defenders and midfielders as well, and Ed Woodward must surely be on his mobile phone speaking to agents and various other middlemen across Europe.
But the attack isn't all it's cracked up to be, either. Nobody is quite sure exactly where Di Maria will play in Louis van Gaal's flexible systems, but he is sure to make an improvement wherever he is deployed.
"I have bought him because he can play inside and on the wing, and that is handy for a coach," Van Gaal said on Tuesday. "When I was at Bayern Munich, on August 28 I also bought Arjen Robben, who could also play on the wing and inside."
That is handy, because so far the club's makeshift wing-backs have combined to conjure up the Premier League's worst cross completion rate at 5 per cent this season - 13% lower than their average across the whole 2013-14 campaign.
West Ham led the way last term with 22.64%. Di Maria himself managed 26.28% for Real Madrid, having put in 156 crosses - the fourth highest in Spain.
When he's not putting in crosses he's running at opponents, and last season in La Liga he attempted 110 dribbles, with a success rate of 43.63%. Only one Manchester United player tried more than 70: Adnan Januzaj went at opponents 122 times with a success rate of 41.8%.
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