That's because we've become desensitised. Another season and we'll enjoy losing...
United under LvG: verdict so far!
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
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That's because we've become desensitised. Another season and we'll enjoy losing...
If I were the manager I would try one more experiment before the big games, I'd use 4-3-3 with Blind anchor, Herrera RCM, Angel LCM, Young LW and Januzaj RW with Rooney ST.
As for the big games he will select based on the opposition strengths and his tactics to counter them but it's worth having knowledge of how this selection will do.
Also I hope he can work on di Maria's inconsistency, I know he isn't a miracle worker but sometimes he can improve players, I'd also like to see him turn Nani into a squad player too next season.
As for the big games he will select based on the opposition strengths and his tactics to counter them but it's worth having knowledge of how this selection will do.
Also I hope he can work on di Maria's inconsistency, I know he isn't a miracle worker but sometimes he can improve players, I'd also like to see him turn Nani into a squad player too next season.
It's really part of it. If Klopp becomes our manager today, there's a certain way we'll expect him to get us playing, same goes for Guardiola. In fact, people often associate Mourinho with boring football, and it's all because of how some of his past teams have played. So, I don't think it's far fetched to assume we expect United to play a certain way that Van Gaal's team generally play. Having said that, I don't have any problem with him being pragmatic this season, I just want a top four finish and with our resources, he should be getting that.
Someone made quite an interesting point yesterday on the radio - does LVG shackle our creative instincts? Is the team so well drilled that they struggle to make any creative moves or take any risks?
I think part of our robotic, predictable moves are down to the LVG philosophy, that is for sure. There is a downside to being so over-drilled.
I think part of our robotic, predictable moves are down to the LVG philosophy, that is for sure. There is a downside to being so over-drilled.
I think a lot is down to our full backs not over lapping and the lack of mobility (pace) in our number 9.
Yep. Bringing on Januzaj for Di Maria certainly helped us look more threatening but Sunderland were still containing us pretty well. It was only when Sunderland went down to 10 men did we really put significant pressure on their defense and start creating multiple chances.
I'd say the positives from yesterday:
- Smalling excellent
- Young excellent
- Januzaj did well
No, Guardiola still has to match Van Gaal's performance in his first year at Bayern, although Guardiola inhereted an attacking free flowing balanced team, while Van Gaal had to change the club from a counterattacking side wiht an inbalanced squad. Van Gaal got unlucky in the CL final, Guardiola got hammered in the SF. Van Gaal's first year in Munich was pretty special, he layed the foundations and build a better house than Guardiola so far.
I'm not very impressed with the job Van Gaal did at Barcelona, it was decent, but he tried to copy his Ajax too much. But I also think Guardiola's job at Barcelona isn't that of a genius. He had a brilliant Messi, and he had Iniesta who is the most clever player around, always thinking ahead, finding space for others with simple quick moves, running the show in midfield. And still he needed a lot of 'unbalanced' refereeing to make to those finals.
It wasn't his favourite style of play, but his performance at the WC was brilliant. The qualifying matches had a lot more style because of 4-3-3, but where of course easier matches. It's unrealistic to expect Barcelona football with these players in this league at this point. It's not unrealistic to expect football like his or Heynkes Bayern within two years.
Apologies if previously posted, I login once/twice per week when time permits.
Thoughts?
http://www.espnfc.us/club/mancheste...or-his-manchester-united-identity-simon-kuper
Louis van Gaal still searching for his Manchester United identity
I first became aware of a chap named Louis van Gaal about 35 years ago. I was growing up in the Netherlands, and he was a minor but intriguing character in Dutch soccer. This gangling flat-faced man was playmaker for a club called Sparta Rotterdam, where he tried to control games from the centre circle, because unfortunately he couldn't run. Van Gaal moved (it was said then) as if he'd swallowed an umbrella. You also saw him sometimes on TV as the opinionated union rep for Dutch soccer players.
The Van Gaal I first encountered barely changed over the next 34 or so years: he always knew he was right. As a coach he preached attacking 4-3-3 soccer -- the so-called "Dutch school" -- and any manager who didn't play it was evil or stupid or both. That's why it's so strange to see him struggling at Manchester United now. Seven months into his reign, United still aren't playing good soccer. The club's fans are wondering what his plan is. But slowly the truth is dawning: He doesn't have one. He is lost. This isn't the old Van Gaal anymore. For the first time in his coaching career, he doesn't seem to know what to do.
In 2009, the old Van Gaal published a book, in Dutch, called "Visie" ("Vision"). The title says it all: the book is the ideological statement of an ideological coach. Its opening words are, "I sometimes suspect myself of being more interested in 'playing the game well' than in 'winning'." When he lists the characteristics of his teams, the first is, "An attacking playing style is used."
That was how Van Gaal had coached Ajax, Barcelona and Holland. Yet by the time he published "Visie," he was already shifting. It turned out he was more interested in winning than playing well. In 2009, he took the provincial team AZ Alkmaar to the Dutch league title by playing 4-4-2 and striking on the break. Then he went to Bayern Munich, and it was the old Van Gaal again: victories with rapid-attacking passing soccer.
That didn't last, however, and last year appeared to be the culmination of Van Gaal's gradual move away from his beloved 4-3-3 attacking soccer. The tipping point perhaps came on April 13, 2014. That evening he took Holland's injured captain Robin van Persie along to watch the Dutch league game PSV vs. Feyenoord. Van Gaal disdained Feyenoord's coach, Ronald Koeman, whom he considered a typical defensive "realist" who only cared about winning. Indeed, that evening Koeman's team lined up in a cautious 5-3-2. But it worked. Feyenoord won 2-0.
Van Gaal decided that this was how a mediocre Dutch team needed to play at the World Cup. He said the loss of midfielder Kevin Strootman to injury three months before had persuaded him to switch formations. "That was the direct prompt," Van Gaal said. "After all, we don't have another Strootman.... Kevin is the only one who can play box to box and also guard the balance in midfield."
In Brazil, Holland's 5-3-2 worked. The boring counterattacking style -- not "Dutch school" at all -- took the team to within penalty kicks of the final. The 62-year-old Van Gaal had reinvented himself. Then, after a three-day holiday, he took charge at Manchester United.
Playing boring, winning soccer in a one-month tournament with a mediocre team was arguably fair enough. Doing so with Manchester United is different. The club is now the biggest spender in English soccer. Last season United's wage bill was 215 million pounds, compared with 205 million pounds for Manchester City, 191 million pounds for Chelsea and 155 million pounds for Arsenal, says Stefan Szymanski, economics professor at the University of Michigan and my coauthor on "Soccernomics." Figures for the current season aren't in yet, but given United's summer transfers the club probably remains England's biggest payer or thereabouts. In other words, United shouldn't have the constraint of limited talent that the Dutch did. Yet United haven't realized the old Van Gaalian vision. In fact, that vision is now better represented by a former pupil of his, his captain at Barcelona in the late 1990s, Josep Guardiola.
Guardiola proves that Van Gaal's passing attacking vision is still possible. Barcelona and Bayern regularly execute it. Indeed, Van Gaal has claimed credit for his role in building their current teams. But he must believe that his vision cannot be realized at United. Almost all his creative players there -- Van Persie, Wayne Rooney, Radamel Falcao, Michael Carrick -- lack the pace needed for the pass-and-run game. Ashley Young, Marcos Rojo and Antonio Valencia have the pace but not the quality. Angel Di Maria has both, but he's one player.
Normally Van Gaal's instinct would be to bring on youth players. Twenty years ago at Ajax he won the Champions League with a mostly homegrown team. Seventeen years ago at Barcelona he gave a debut to the teenaged Xavi, and in 2002 to a teenage Andres Iniesta. At Bayern, he instantly made an unknown kid reserve named Thomas Muller a regular. Van Gaal prefers youngsters to established stars because he does not have much respect for anyone's reputation and because youngsters listen better than stars.
This can only mean he thinks United lack good youngsters. That is an indictment of Sir Alex Ferguson. Since the David Beckham generation appeared under Eric Harrison's tutelage over 20 years ago, United's youth teams have helped produce only a couple of great talents, and they -- Gerard Pique and Paul Pogba -- were allowed to walk out of Ferguson's Old Trafford. Younger players brought on by Ferguson, such as Jonny Evans, Phil Jones, Chris Smalling and Rafael, haven't become top-class.
Ferguson left his successors an ageing team that needed dismantling. Ferguson's anointed heir David Moyes lacked the courage to do it, so the task fell to Van Gaal. It's often remarked that last summer he spent over 150 million pounds on transfer fees to produce mediocre soccer. However, given that he needed to replace about a third of the team, and given the rising cost of transfers in this unprecedentedly rich sport, 150 million pounds really isn't that much.
United's attempts at recruitment also faced two big obstacles. Firstly, Van Gaal was fully occupied with the only major tournament of his career until mid-July. Secondly (as a leading European agent told me recently) few Latin players want to live in Manchester. Buying is easier if you are Chelsea, Real Madrid or Barcelona.
Consequently, Van Gaal started the season with second-rate youngsters, slow stars and no vision. He has swayed between 5-3-2 (or as he calls it, "1-5-3-2", not forgetting the keeper) and 4-1-3-2, 3-5-2 and 4-4-2 without ever seeming happy with any of them. And as West Ham's manager Sam Allardyce pointed out, Van Gaal's United has a very un-Van Gaalian propensity to boot long. Yet presumably one reason United hired him was his history of attacking passing soccer, in line with the club's tradition.
Along with his vision, Van Gaal seems to have lost his anger. Gone are the characteristic red-faced rants at journalists. This may just be because his wife, Truus, begged him to stop embarrassing her that way, but I suspect it's also because he no longer feels that journalists are misunderstanding his brilliant project -- as he doesn't feel he has a brilliant project anymore. He's lost. His Dutch biographer Hugo Borst, who has watched him for even longer than I have, says: "Something in him has changed, and has caused him to lose his astonishing originality."
Van Gaal remains a master of detail. He often sends on subs who create or score crucial goals, like Marouane Fellaini turning the game at West Ham, or Young the battle with little Preston. The defeat to Swansea on Feb. 21 was only United's second loss in 20 matches going back to early November. The team is still in the FA Cup. But fourth in the league, 13 points behind first-placed Chelsea, playing ugly soccer, was not the plan.
In his book "O," Louis Borst complained that Van Gaal at the World Cup had become strictly a "performance coach," bereft of ideology. But now Van Gaal isn't even much of a performance coach. In that realm, too, he has been outstripped by one of his young pupils at Barcelona in the late 1990s, his then assistant Jose Mourinho, of whom Van Gaal once boasted: "I had to teach him how to look." Henk ten Cate, a former assistant coach at Barcelona and Chelsea, told me that many of Mourinho's training exercises were copied from Van Gaal. So the Van Gaalian vision lives on, albeit not in Van Gaal's own teams anymore.
Watching United, Borst sighs, "It's almost scary: a man like him, a pure idealist, now doesn't have a vision. I can't see the long term."
At Old Trafford there may not be one. Since leaving Ajax in 1997, Van Gaal has won many prizes but never stayed long anywhere, partly because he alienates powerful people within a club. He risks doing that now, playing Rooney in several positions, trying Di Maria at centre-forward, benching Falcao. He doesn't seem to have built a large constituency at Old Trafford desperate for him to stay.
United aren't United anymore, partly because Van Gaal is no longer Van Gaal.
Simon Kuper is a contributor to ESPN FC and co-author, with Stefan Szymanski, of Soccernomics.
Thoughts?
http://www.espnfc.us/club/mancheste...or-his-manchester-united-identity-simon-kuper
Louis van Gaal still searching for his Manchester United identity
I first became aware of a chap named Louis van Gaal about 35 years ago. I was growing up in the Netherlands, and he was a minor but intriguing character in Dutch soccer. This gangling flat-faced man was playmaker for a club called Sparta Rotterdam, where he tried to control games from the centre circle, because unfortunately he couldn't run. Van Gaal moved (it was said then) as if he'd swallowed an umbrella. You also saw him sometimes on TV as the opinionated union rep for Dutch soccer players.
The Van Gaal I first encountered barely changed over the next 34 or so years: he always knew he was right. As a coach he preached attacking 4-3-3 soccer -- the so-called "Dutch school" -- and any manager who didn't play it was evil or stupid or both. That's why it's so strange to see him struggling at Manchester United now. Seven months into his reign, United still aren't playing good soccer. The club's fans are wondering what his plan is. But slowly the truth is dawning: He doesn't have one. He is lost. This isn't the old Van Gaal anymore. For the first time in his coaching career, he doesn't seem to know what to do.
In 2009, the old Van Gaal published a book, in Dutch, called "Visie" ("Vision"). The title says it all: the book is the ideological statement of an ideological coach. Its opening words are, "I sometimes suspect myself of being more interested in 'playing the game well' than in 'winning'." When he lists the characteristics of his teams, the first is, "An attacking playing style is used."
That was how Van Gaal had coached Ajax, Barcelona and Holland. Yet by the time he published "Visie," he was already shifting. It turned out he was more interested in winning than playing well. In 2009, he took the provincial team AZ Alkmaar to the Dutch league title by playing 4-4-2 and striking on the break. Then he went to Bayern Munich, and it was the old Van Gaal again: victories with rapid-attacking passing soccer.
That didn't last, however, and last year appeared to be the culmination of Van Gaal's gradual move away from his beloved 4-3-3 attacking soccer. The tipping point perhaps came on April 13, 2014. That evening he took Holland's injured captain Robin van Persie along to watch the Dutch league game PSV vs. Feyenoord. Van Gaal disdained Feyenoord's coach, Ronald Koeman, whom he considered a typical defensive "realist" who only cared about winning. Indeed, that evening Koeman's team lined up in a cautious 5-3-2. But it worked. Feyenoord won 2-0.
Van Gaal decided that this was how a mediocre Dutch team needed to play at the World Cup. He said the loss of midfielder Kevin Strootman to injury three months before had persuaded him to switch formations. "That was the direct prompt," Van Gaal said. "After all, we don't have another Strootman.... Kevin is the only one who can play box to box and also guard the balance in midfield."
In Brazil, Holland's 5-3-2 worked. The boring counterattacking style -- not "Dutch school" at all -- took the team to within penalty kicks of the final. The 62-year-old Van Gaal had reinvented himself. Then, after a three-day holiday, he took charge at Manchester United.
Playing boring, winning soccer in a one-month tournament with a mediocre team was arguably fair enough. Doing so with Manchester United is different. The club is now the biggest spender in English soccer. Last season United's wage bill was 215 million pounds, compared with 205 million pounds for Manchester City, 191 million pounds for Chelsea and 155 million pounds for Arsenal, says Stefan Szymanski, economics professor at the University of Michigan and my coauthor on "Soccernomics." Figures for the current season aren't in yet, but given United's summer transfers the club probably remains England's biggest payer or thereabouts. In other words, United shouldn't have the constraint of limited talent that the Dutch did. Yet United haven't realized the old Van Gaalian vision. In fact, that vision is now better represented by a former pupil of his, his captain at Barcelona in the late 1990s, Josep Guardiola.
Guardiola proves that Van Gaal's passing attacking vision is still possible. Barcelona and Bayern regularly execute it. Indeed, Van Gaal has claimed credit for his role in building their current teams. But he must believe that his vision cannot be realized at United. Almost all his creative players there -- Van Persie, Wayne Rooney, Radamel Falcao, Michael Carrick -- lack the pace needed for the pass-and-run game. Ashley Young, Marcos Rojo and Antonio Valencia have the pace but not the quality. Angel Di Maria has both, but he's one player.
Normally Van Gaal's instinct would be to bring on youth players. Twenty years ago at Ajax he won the Champions League with a mostly homegrown team. Seventeen years ago at Barcelona he gave a debut to the teenaged Xavi, and in 2002 to a teenage Andres Iniesta. At Bayern, he instantly made an unknown kid reserve named Thomas Muller a regular. Van Gaal prefers youngsters to established stars because he does not have much respect for anyone's reputation and because youngsters listen better than stars.
This can only mean he thinks United lack good youngsters. That is an indictment of Sir Alex Ferguson. Since the David Beckham generation appeared under Eric Harrison's tutelage over 20 years ago, United's youth teams have helped produce only a couple of great talents, and they -- Gerard Pique and Paul Pogba -- were allowed to walk out of Ferguson's Old Trafford. Younger players brought on by Ferguson, such as Jonny Evans, Phil Jones, Chris Smalling and Rafael, haven't become top-class.
Ferguson left his successors an ageing team that needed dismantling. Ferguson's anointed heir David Moyes lacked the courage to do it, so the task fell to Van Gaal. It's often remarked that last summer he spent over 150 million pounds on transfer fees to produce mediocre soccer. However, given that he needed to replace about a third of the team, and given the rising cost of transfers in this unprecedentedly rich sport, 150 million pounds really isn't that much.
United's attempts at recruitment also faced two big obstacles. Firstly, Van Gaal was fully occupied with the only major tournament of his career until mid-July. Secondly (as a leading European agent told me recently) few Latin players want to live in Manchester. Buying is easier if you are Chelsea, Real Madrid or Barcelona.
Consequently, Van Gaal started the season with second-rate youngsters, slow stars and no vision. He has swayed between 5-3-2 (or as he calls it, "1-5-3-2", not forgetting the keeper) and 4-1-3-2, 3-5-2 and 4-4-2 without ever seeming happy with any of them. And as West Ham's manager Sam Allardyce pointed out, Van Gaal's United has a very un-Van Gaalian propensity to boot long. Yet presumably one reason United hired him was his history of attacking passing soccer, in line with the club's tradition.
Along with his vision, Van Gaal seems to have lost his anger. Gone are the characteristic red-faced rants at journalists. This may just be because his wife, Truus, begged him to stop embarrassing her that way, but I suspect it's also because he no longer feels that journalists are misunderstanding his brilliant project -- as he doesn't feel he has a brilliant project anymore. He's lost. His Dutch biographer Hugo Borst, who has watched him for even longer than I have, says: "Something in him has changed, and has caused him to lose his astonishing originality."
Van Gaal remains a master of detail. He often sends on subs who create or score crucial goals, like Marouane Fellaini turning the game at West Ham, or Young the battle with little Preston. The defeat to Swansea on Feb. 21 was only United's second loss in 20 matches going back to early November. The team is still in the FA Cup. But fourth in the league, 13 points behind first-placed Chelsea, playing ugly soccer, was not the plan.
In his book "O," Louis Borst complained that Van Gaal at the World Cup had become strictly a "performance coach," bereft of ideology. But now Van Gaal isn't even much of a performance coach. In that realm, too, he has been outstripped by one of his young pupils at Barcelona in the late 1990s, his then assistant Jose Mourinho, of whom Van Gaal once boasted: "I had to teach him how to look." Henk ten Cate, a former assistant coach at Barcelona and Chelsea, told me that many of Mourinho's training exercises were copied from Van Gaal. So the Van Gaalian vision lives on, albeit not in Van Gaal's own teams anymore.
Watching United, Borst sighs, "It's almost scary: a man like him, a pure idealist, now doesn't have a vision. I can't see the long term."
At Old Trafford there may not be one. Since leaving Ajax in 1997, Van Gaal has won many prizes but never stayed long anywhere, partly because he alienates powerful people within a club. He risks doing that now, playing Rooney in several positions, trying Di Maria at centre-forward, benching Falcao. He doesn't seem to have built a large constituency at Old Trafford desperate for him to stay.
United aren't United anymore, partly because Van Gaal is no longer Van Gaal.
Simon Kuper is a contributor to ESPN FC and co-author, with Stefan Szymanski, of Soccernomics.
I have a lot of respect for Simon Kuper.
Dunno. Of course, if you simply presuppose that the way we look right now is the way we'll always look under Van Gaal, then yes - no vision, no imagination, no exciting youth players, let's all go top ourselves, etc.
Plus, it's pretty much just a mishmash of everything depressing about United at the moment. The youth player thing, not least, surely isn't Van Gaal's fault. Unless Kuper is hinting at him not using talents he actually possesses. But who are these? He's given plenty of game time to youngsters this season, by the way - much more than many other managers would've done.
And there never seems to be any perspective when people talk about our youth players. The class of '92 was an anomaly - the golden Barca generation was an anomaly too. No clubs in our category regularly produce strings of first teamers. United's academy has shipped out decent-to-very-good players for years. The fact that hardly any of them become established first team players and even fewer become as good Paul Scholes is neither here nor there.
(Last part a tangent, so apologies).
Plus, it's pretty much just a mishmash of everything depressing about United at the moment. The youth player thing, not least, surely isn't Van Gaal's fault. Unless Kuper is hinting at him not using talents he actually possesses. But who are these? He's given plenty of game time to youngsters this season, by the way - much more than many other managers would've done.
And there never seems to be any perspective when people talk about our youth players. The class of '92 was an anomaly - the golden Barca generation was an anomaly too. No clubs in our category regularly produce strings of first teamers. United's academy has shipped out decent-to-very-good players for years. The fact that hardly any of them become established first team players and even fewer become as good Paul Scholes is neither here nor there.
(Last part a tangent, so apologies).
He shackles creativity, this is true. The whole team has to be rigid and follow his exact gameplan, fail to do this and you're subbed off before half time. Each player gets specific tasks which they must execute, whilst also being aware of the specific tasks of their teammates.
He talks about creative players, and how he only wants 4 at a time in his lineup. These 4 players have more freedom and have the right to take risks (high up the pitch!, not near De Gea). Di Maria obviously is one, as you can see he can pretty much do whatever the feck he wants. His number 10 always is one and I believe even RvP falls under this (not sure though!).
When all players are aware of the tasks they've been given it can still lead to fluid and attacking football, usually in the 433 he loves. This process takes time though, as it's not easily learned. This is one of the reasons we're seeing this dull football, the players are trying to master his playstyle which is totally different to what many played before.
What we're seeing this season is exactly what LvG did at the WC: pragmatism. He underestimated the job at hands: overestimated our selection (due to a great preseason), underestimated the need for physicality in the PL (he admitted this) and has a lack of balance in his selection according to his own set rules. These rules being left-right foot combinations, one creative midfielder, one defensive midfielder and one box-to-box player to play 433 etcetera. He's said he switched to 352 with Holland because of Strootman's injury: his box-to-box player. Holland had no backup for him so he went for pure pragmatism with the 352, in the qualification Holland played 433 with attacking football. Currently we have no box-to-box player, Rooney and Fellaini come closest to this but haven't succeeded in his eyes.
I think he wanted the 352 to be a safeguard this season before he could fully asses the squad (he could after all not buy a complete new team in 1 window). After this experiment failed he's tried to tinker with alot of different formations and they've all not worked for different reasons. I think we'll see attacking football next year, when the players are drilled and he can fill the holes in the squad needed to play his beloved 433.
To come back to your post, yes he does shackle creativity. He doesn't want players to be adventurous (the non-creative players) because it would disrupt the way he set up the team to execute his gameplan and leave us vulnerable to counters.
Mr Marcello. You're nailed on.
Nice post
Not always. There's been so many times we've been scratching our heads as to why certain players were constantly played by fergie, and that sometimes even included giggs I'm afraid.
I do not see any pragmatism in current United side. I do not see pragmatic football at all. What I see is an unbalanced team, trying to play in a way that is not familiar to its squad, under a manager who is still not sure about optimal positions of some of his key/star football players. Pragmatism would be getting the best out of the current lot, playing to their strengths, and I do not see LvG doing this. In fact, it is quite the opposite: he is too adventurous and inconsistent in his formations and tactics. If there is a pragmatic team in EPL, it is Chelsea.
Same here. We look disjoint more than anything and have so for a long time now. That element of the players being individuals rather than a cohesive unit seems to be more the case with us than other sides. And it's a bit nuts given how much we spend.
The next couple of months are huge for LVG. Liverpool are in red hot form and if we feck about over the next 10 games, even 4th place this season could look like an uphill battle, and missing out would cost him his job.
So yeah, better get us firing and going on a run.
Really interesting article. It seems clear that the players we have are a long way off what he requires to play the way he (presumably) would like. Makes selling Welbeck look even more strange though, as he clearly did fit in.
Was he responsible for calling off the mid-season friendlies?
It really was, things just got worse and worse and so now we remember a lot of the tough games above all but in reality we also had plenty of convincing displays to minnows on the road.
That was mainly down to continuation in our style of play though not Moyes.
Im hating this season as im hardly enjoying games. For me the perception is last season we were setup to win we'd often feck things up, this season it feels like we know its going to be a dull before every game.
Its very demoralising
As much as I'm disappointed with Lvg my memory of last season is a bit different. Our away form was good but the play was boring and we lacked tempo and creativity in our play. Of course we had the odd good game, like this season, but I didn't enjoy that in the slightest.
I don't think we can deny that progress has stalled at United right now.
The first three games showed us the scale of the job LVG had in front of him. Lack of quality, poor on the ball and a chronic loss of confidence. From the end of Sept through to January I thought we were progressing. We weren't playing great football all that time (though we did have good spells) but a lot of the fundamental problems from last season seemed to be getting better. Our confidence started coming back, we were really fighting in tough games where we'd have buckled last year. Our attack (in simple terms of goals scored if not how pretty it was to watch) was okay and our defence was just about good enough. It felt like that was a decent step forward in the first few months.
But since then we've not really kicked on. It's hard to specify the exact moment. We had that winning run, followed by a draw away to Spurs when we were unlucky not to win, then a draw away vs Stoke, which is never a terrible result. But even though they weren't poor results it checked our momentum.
We haven't played well since then (ignoring an easy home win against a league two side). That's going back about 6 weeks now. Indeed I'd say we've gone backwards. During autumn we had those wins against Liverpool, Hull and Newcastle that exemplified our form. Not particularly fluid or expansive, but controlled and clinical. In the last few games we've been a bit more fluid, but haven't looked anywhere near as controlled.
I don't think this is a reason to want LVG out or anything along those lines. The problems that LVG had earlier this season are still very real - average injury prone central defenders, lack of pace up front, lack of attacking intent from the full backs, no proper box to box player. That has clearly hampered his ability to make progress with the team. There's no way to solve those particular problems other than in the transfer market.
But even allowing for that I think the last 6 weeks or so have been unimpressive from Van Gaal. I hope that this isnt a sign of the rest of the season.
The first three games showed us the scale of the job LVG had in front of him. Lack of quality, poor on the ball and a chronic loss of confidence. From the end of Sept through to January I thought we were progressing. We weren't playing great football all that time (though we did have good spells) but a lot of the fundamental problems from last season seemed to be getting better. Our confidence started coming back, we were really fighting in tough games where we'd have buckled last year. Our attack (in simple terms of goals scored if not how pretty it was to watch) was okay and our defence was just about good enough. It felt like that was a decent step forward in the first few months.
But since then we've not really kicked on. It's hard to specify the exact moment. We had that winning run, followed by a draw away to Spurs when we were unlucky not to win, then a draw away vs Stoke, which is never a terrible result. But even though they weren't poor results it checked our momentum.
We haven't played well since then (ignoring an easy home win against a league two side). That's going back about 6 weeks now. Indeed I'd say we've gone backwards. During autumn we had those wins against Liverpool, Hull and Newcastle that exemplified our form. Not particularly fluid or expansive, but controlled and clinical. In the last few games we've been a bit more fluid, but haven't looked anywhere near as controlled.
I don't think this is a reason to want LVG out or anything along those lines. The problems that LVG had earlier this season are still very real - average injury prone central defenders, lack of pace up front, lack of attacking intent from the full backs, no proper box to box player. That has clearly hampered his ability to make progress with the team. There's no way to solve those particular problems other than in the transfer market.
But even allowing for that I think the last 6 weeks or so have been unimpressive from Van Gaal. I hope that this isnt a sign of the rest of the season.
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I'd go with the one all draw against a really poor Villa side. Beating Newcastle so easily in the next game flattered to deceive (as did the first 45 against Spurs) but I reckon the rot started at Christmas.
Mind you, the more you think about it the further back you can see the warning signs. You mention the Liverpool game as being controlled but we coughed up a crazy amount of chances against a team that was a long way short of their current form. Ditto the home wins against Arsenal and Southampton. If either of those sides had worn their shooting boots the knives would have been out for Van Gaal much earlier than 2015. The Chelsea game felt like a turning point of sorts but, on any other day, Hazard would have converted that chance and they'd have won comfortably.
If you ask me, we've been pretty shit all season. We've had spells where we rode our luck and went on a decent run but have never looked close to the finished article and a crappy performance was always just round the corner.
A big issue for me is whether Van Gaal should be getting more out of our current squad of players than he has done. I think he almost certainly should have. However, I also think it's possible that a couple more signings might make a big difference. It's possible he's the sort of manager who needs to have everything in place to execute his footballing vision. He's not capable of bodging things round to get a half-finished squad to punch above his weight but he is capable of getting league and CL winning campaigns out of a squad of his making.
That might be being too charitable though. Time will tell.
I find the "if other teams wore their shooting boots" argument incredibly fraustrating.
United fail to convert chances = United are really shit.
Opposition fail to convert chances = United are very lucky.
Flipside logic = in many games this season the opposition have been very lucky that our forwards have been unable to convert chances.
Personally, I'm very happy with a performance where we create a load of good chances, yet fail to convert them. Especially if takes some really special saves from the opposition keeper to stop us scoring. That's why I thought the first half against Spurs was arguably our best 45 of the season, despite failing to score a single goal.
Unfortunately, performances like that have been very few and far between under Van Gaal. Spurs aside, the only games I can think of where our forwards missed a bunch of easy chances (or the oppo keeper has a blinder) have been against lower league opposition.
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The Kuper article is interesting because it seems to sit a bit awkwardly, to my mind, with the news late last week that Van Gaal has outlined a five year plan to the Glazers and is hugely excited about and up for this challenge. First we hear he is brimming with ideas and has a strategy, then we hear, from a respected observer who knows Dutch football and Van Gaal fairly well but without being ITK, that all the signs are that this is not following his usual script of difficult bedding in period, inevitably followed by the penny dropping and a steep improvement in the football.
I think all the early warnings that things would be tough to start off with but would ultimately improve gave me patience and allowed me to ignore a lot of the warning signs. But the reminder that things may not follow that same pattern is a bit of a reality check. He has tried to bring in a few kids but its hard to imagine in 5 years time either Blackett or McNair being top quality defenders and us thinking back fondly to when Van Gaal brought them in. At this stage they look like theyll be a similar quality to a lot of the other players that have emerged out of the academy, which is to say theyll do reasonably well but they are not world beaters and they may well eventually find themselves employed at smaller clubs.
Neither has he really "Schweinsteigered" anyone. There's been a lot of tinkering with people's positions but nothing inspired, on the contrary you'd have to say we would probably be in a better position now if he had stuck to playing everyone in their obvious positions from the start. This was a hallmark of Van Gaal and its conspicuous by its absence.
Its worrying to read someone you respect saying he looks like he has no idea, because this thoughts has been very much in my own mind but ive been consoling myself that there must be a method to the madness and he surely had a grand plan that I was just unable to see. If Kuper and Hugo Borst cant see it either, it makes me more inclined to think its probably just not there.
It puts us in a very difficult position with regards to the decision about whether to stick or twist. Im still more nervous about the implications of another managerial change than anything else at this stage. But there's certainly a danger in assuming things will necessarily improve if given enough time. I suppose it leaves me holding onto the hope that, just because he may not have a clear plan or any real inspiration at the moment, that doesnt mean he wont find it somewhere. Maybe things will all fall into place and Van Gaal will rediscover his mojo. Hopefully what we're seeing is more the result of the magnitude of the task that faced him than him just running out of ideas and losing his spark. But that is more hope that expectation. I think we're between a rock and a hard place at the moment, we're coming to a crossroads and both paths look equally perilous to me.
I think all the early warnings that things would be tough to start off with but would ultimately improve gave me patience and allowed me to ignore a lot of the warning signs. But the reminder that things may not follow that same pattern is a bit of a reality check. He has tried to bring in a few kids but its hard to imagine in 5 years time either Blackett or McNair being top quality defenders and us thinking back fondly to when Van Gaal brought them in. At this stage they look like theyll be a similar quality to a lot of the other players that have emerged out of the academy, which is to say theyll do reasonably well but they are not world beaters and they may well eventually find themselves employed at smaller clubs.
Neither has he really "Schweinsteigered" anyone. There's been a lot of tinkering with people's positions but nothing inspired, on the contrary you'd have to say we would probably be in a better position now if he had stuck to playing everyone in their obvious positions from the start. This was a hallmark of Van Gaal and its conspicuous by its absence.
Its worrying to read someone you respect saying he looks like he has no idea, because this thoughts has been very much in my own mind but ive been consoling myself that there must be a method to the madness and he surely had a grand plan that I was just unable to see. If Kuper and Hugo Borst cant see it either, it makes me more inclined to think its probably just not there.
It puts us in a very difficult position with regards to the decision about whether to stick or twist. Im still more nervous about the implications of another managerial change than anything else at this stage. But there's certainly a danger in assuming things will necessarily improve if given enough time. I suppose it leaves me holding onto the hope that, just because he may not have a clear plan or any real inspiration at the moment, that doesnt mean he wont find it somewhere. Maybe things will all fall into place and Van Gaal will rediscover his mojo. Hopefully what we're seeing is more the result of the magnitude of the task that faced him than him just running out of ideas and losing his spark. But that is more hope that expectation. I think we're between a rock and a hard place at the moment, we're coming to a crossroads and both paths look equally perilous to me.
Unfortunately I think is spot on. We have all in all been quite average all season, I was forgiving up until Christmas given all the injuries we had but we really ought to have kicked on from there on. Not quite sure where I stand in regards to Van Gaal but the football isn't pleasing on the eye and the turn of results suggest we will be finishing outside the top 4. If that happens where do we go from there in regards his future.
That sounded like the sort of standard PR puff piece we've come to expect under Woodward. There was a few of them last season about how everything was hunky dory under Moyes.
And how many games have we missed loads of chances and it has come to bite us? You could argue Spurs away as one of those games but that's about it.
Yes Im sure youre right. Maybe something is going on behind the scenes. If he feels the need to come out and publicly back his manager, maybe it means the knives are being sharpened. Otherwise he could just have not said anything.
Its all too depressing.
I feel that the majority of fans will turn a blind eye to our performances this season once LVG gets us back into the Champions League. If not, I feel the pitchforks will be out.
Watching games it becomes clear that possession and from that control of games is the most important part of LVG philosophy , if the risk of losing possession is high then don`t take a chance play the safe pass . Twice against Sunderland Young overhit a corner , Blind retrieved , played back to Evans who then passed to De Gea so we went from a corner back to our keeper . We didn`t lose possession and started again . So we build up slowly and if it doesn`t work keep the ball and try again . In theory a good plan . To watch it can be painful and tumescent . There is also a risk of a defender having a brainfart moment and giving the ball away cheaply while we are retaining possession in our own half . I do think if goals were coming a lot more freely it would remove a bit of pressure from the defensive side of our game though and also make teams come out and play a bit more . We need our attacking play to start finding an end product and hitting the net which doesn`t look likely with the form of our forward / midfield players . We are awful at set plays too which are great opportunities to nick goals when you are struggling for goals . feck knows what the answer is though and whatever any of us think and propose is pointless cos LVG will do it his way . Just got to hope he is right . Squeaky bum from now on methinks .
Against West Ham Falcao scuffed a one on one wide of the post which he really should have done better with. Shortly after Van Persie had a strike from about 10 yards out with nobody on him which he should have buried and he limply put it to the goalkeepers arms at the front post.
Definitely, post-Moyes it is top four or bust for most fans. I do think think a lot of fans would be more forgiving if we missed out on top 4 but some form of progress was made. However progress seems to be last thing that you would associate with this team.
Hopefully part of that is that he's still not sure about the defence, which I'm not either.
If not, we are missing some very clear openings when teams are disorganised. By the time we've retained possession and come back, they're all set up again. Sometimes not taking a small risk is the real risk.
West Had chances in the first half which they didn't take. Overall, they probably had more chances in that game than we did.
Compared to any vintage season, yes we've been poor for much of the season, certainly in terms of excitement. But for where we were post-Moyes it was acceptable. We were improving, albeit slowly. So I don't think we were poor given the context.
My problem is that our rate of improvement has been behind the expected curve since the back end of last year. Indeed we've flatlined in the last couple of months.
Tough one to call that. You could make the argument that Falcao and RVP are simply past it (though he keeps picking 'em). You could also say that Jones/Smalling/Evans are simply not good enough and no-one could gild those turnips. Beyond that it's a funny mix. He gets a lot out of Young, Fellaini and Valencia. Some like Carrick, Blind and Herrera seem to keep playing well without being too amazing. But Rooney & ADM, in theory our best players, are both well out of form.
That's entirely possible. Indeed it may not even be about quality per se, simply that our squad is an ill fit for his style of play. One thing that's stuck out this season is that Daley Blind is one of few players who looks comfortable in every position that he's played. LVG is clearly a tactics heavy kind of guy and frankly a lot of our players don't seem able to deal with that.
May I first of all say that Hugo Borst, although he did write his book, is by no means a friend of van Gaal? They fell out on multiple occasions I believe. He's just a journo who wants to make money and he isn't rated that high in Holland. He writes good books, yes. But his job as football critic he's not brilliant at, he's never played football in his life. (I'm not a fan, he's a horrible man)
The article comes with some facts yes, and it might be true he doesn't see enough youngsters to implement in his first year. LvG hasn't lost his vision though, Blind praised him after the WC for predicting how every match would go as they did.
Has he lost his spark? He wanted to retire before Holland, but got the job. When Manchester United called, his wife Truus said that he had to retire, but he didn't. He wants to win the league in all the big competitions, so I have no doubt that he's still got the fire the younger van Gaal had.
Do we see this fire? No. He has been amazingly calm for van Gaal, everyone who knows him could tell you that. I think it's a combination of 3 things: his wife Truus (who repeatedly was embarred at his previous jobs), he's a bit older and maybe a bit calmer and he's not fluent in English. He's very clearly struggling for words, if you want to go on a tirade that's not very usefull. The long balls press conference was the first where he could respond after someone crossed his line: with facts he printed out. I believe we'll that fire back sooner than later, he was still just as mad for the worldcup.
The article says Holland switched to 352 because of Strootman, the box-to-box type picking up an injury. What it doesn't say is that we haven't got one either at Manchester United. He's tried Fellaini, Rooney and Herrera in this role but he was never happy. If you know his 'philosophy' you know that he always wants 4 defensive minded players. When we've played 352 that was no problem: 3CB+1DM, but when he switched to the diamond because it wasn't working out he had problems. 2CB+1DM isn't enough for him, he needs a box-to-box player. At the moment we see Herrera playing as this defensive minded player and he's done well against teams that park the bus, but Herrera is still a creative player for him.
The squad is too unbalanced for him to play 433, his 2nd choice 352 (where he does have the players for) didn't work out so that left him in a spot of bother. He's still tinkering for the formation and like I posted above he admitted to having underestimated some parts of the job which left him struggling. He does have a long-term plan though, this is van Gaal we're talking about. The man who even analyses how the opponents take their kickoffs, throw-ins and does 100% of the thinking for the players. Van Gaal saw what happened to Moyes, he's not going to fully implement his style of play when he doesn't trust the balance of players. (4 defensive minded, 4 creative etc) Once he gets some players to fill the criteria he's set we'll see a more settled formation.
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All I want is a top four finish and I might be in a minority, but I don't care how that is achieved. The road to any long term plan has to hinge on our ability to finish in a champions league place. Our rate of improvement has been snail pace and I do think Van Gaal has to take full responsibility for that. Sometimes I think Van Gaal is obsessed with tactics etc but I feel at times, what the team needs might be a little bit of pep talk, something like what he did with Januzaj at half time against Sunderland, he needs to do that more often and get players "in the mood", get them fighting from the first whistle.
I agree with you....as long as he gets us in the top 4 then I will not complain.
Once we're in the Champs league, he can get the 3-4 players we really need and we should make a serious title challenge next season.
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