Who was worse, Moyes or Van Gaal?

Who did a worse job?

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Pogue Mahone

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Might well be a thread about this already but I can't find it. Interested in opinions about who did a worse job. I firmly believe Van Gaal did worse than Moyes, when you take into account the length of their spell in charge, the money invested in the squad and the relative strength of the teams around them.

Anyone else agree?

Anyone disagree?

Oh and for the record, I think Moyes did a very bad job. He was clearly out of his depth and was rightfully sacked.
 
Moyes was worse, looking at all those good cm's that were on the move in his summer and all he had to do was add one to the squad at the time .
 
Van Gaal for me.

Moyes was terrible, absolutely terrible, but LVG spent a fortune and constantly tried to put square pegs in round holes. His staunch refusal to adapt himself to the squad and instead turning players into mindless drones was unforgivable.

They both did bad jobs, but LVG's failure to adapt edges it.

Moyes also faced a tougher level of competition from the top teams in the league.
 
yes Van Gaal spent more money than Moyes but on the other hand Moyes also inherited a title winning squad whereas Van Gaal inherited much worse.

Moyes was comfortably worse as nothing good came out of his time at all. Whereas there were some pretty good things in Van Gaal's time: Martial, Shaw, Rashford, Smalling's growth, winning the FA cup, beating Liverpool and City multiple times, etc.

Moyes - 1/10
Van Gaal - 5/10
 
Of course Moyes. People have short memories - remember the humiliation we had against the top four sides that year? LVG sucked the life out of this club but his team played very well against the top sides in the PL.
 
Moyes. At least LVG left us with a FA cup, Martial and Rashford. Moyes was a total disaster.
 
I despise them both with an unhealthy passion... but at least LVG won a trophy... whilst Moyes spurned his best chance of getting a trophy by being shit against Arsenal and with one of the worst approaches to a game of football I've ever seen against Sunderland.

In terms of football played and overal management of the club I think they were both as bad as each other.
 
Moyes. As much of an idiot Van Gaal was, there were at least a few good highlights of his reign.

Moyes' only highlight was him getting sacked.
 
Moyes for me, a man promoted totally above his ability.
LVGS time runs it close because of the money he spent and his arrogance. In addition he was here longer so increase's his damage to the club.
 
NinjaFletch said:
Moyes. Not even close.
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Not even close?

Overall
Van Gaal's win % was worse than Moyes (52% v 53%).
We scored fewer goals per game under him than Moyes (1.29 vs 1.6) The worst in the history of the club!

2015/16
Van Gaal oversaw a season with the joint highest number of games in which we didn't score (one more than under Moyes)
He had our worst ever PL goal difference (7 worse than Moyes)
We made the most backward passes of any team in the PL
We made more fouls than any other team in the league

Those last four stats came from his second season in charge, when he had had the sort of time and money to invest in the team that Moyes could only have dreamed of. A campaign where Liverpool, Chelsea and City all fired their managers and Leicester emerged as champions. Leicester!
 
Quite clearly Moyes and I don't care what stats you throw at me. We lost (sometimes thrashed) in pretty much every big game under him and came nowhere near winning a trophy.
 
Moyes.

LvG at least won a trophy we hadn't won for 12 years, brought through Rashford, bought Martial, integrated him and Lingard in the first team, improved Smalling and bought Blind (who I hope we keep).
Also under him we at least weren't every top opposition 's favourite team to play against.
 
God, it's hard to say. Like choosing between pins stuck in your balls or your eyes.

Moyes was more out of his depth, more clueless, and probably worse over-all.

But Vangal was so wilfully shit - he had two seasons and spent them forcing us to play awful football which achieved nothing. The Cup win just saves him though.
 
It's a tough one, statistically Moyes was worse but when you factor in the state of the PL during their respective reigns you could argue LVG was far worse.
Moyes was a coward, said self defeating things, felt sorry for himself and generally spent 9 months here afraid of his own shadow.
LVG spent a lot of money but produced football worse than what it was under Moyes. He was stubborn, sometimes downright idiotic but at least he had confidence in himself and at times was quite funny. He was also tactically superior to Moyes, who's record against the better sides was laughable. Plus he won the FA Cup.
I personally found myself more angry at LVG than at Moyes but maybe that's because I expected a lot more of LVG.

I think overall all things considered Moyes was worse but LVG angered me more, there.....
 
I'd agree with the op. Both of them were terrible, but with moyes we always kinda knew that it was going to be a huge risk. Nobody thought of him as a great coach who would bring in a new style of play or summat.
Lvg came with a quite some reputation. I remember the German guys, (Balu I think it was) who said we could be in for a disappointment with Lvg. But most of us chose to focus on his work with barca, or even the success he had with bayern. It felt like we were getting a coach who would be worthy of United, someone who could improve our style of play. From that perspective it was a total disaster. Plus he was backed heavily in the transfer market.
 
In hindsight I struggle to think of a single positive from Moyes' time here. He's also encumbered us with Fellaini and an undroppable and unsellable Rooney for years, so his negative influence has continued even years after he got booted out. The one thing he has over van Gaal is getting further in the Champions League, but considering that he combined that cup run with not even qualifying for Europa League the next season, I'm not sure that really counts.

At least van Gaal won a trophy, brought Rashford, TFM and CBJ up to the first team, qualified for the Champions League in his first season, signed Martial and provided some entertainment in interviews by being a bit crazy. Also, that fall by the touchline. He was poor but not disastrous, unlike Moyes.
 
Moyes was so fecking out of his depth it was incredible, but he indeed was out of his depth. Just not good enough.

LVG on the other hand was fecking annoying, shite and made us the most boring team in the world. It's LVG for me being the worse. Moyes was never up to the job, LVG seemed to have the credentials just to prove he's inept.
 
ti vu said:
Opinion matters. IMO, Moyes is a disaster while LVG regrouped the team to certain level (top 4-5).

If you meant the boredom level of their football, then I can give you that LVG tried to change the club identity so the incompatibility of our football vs his gave us this borefest. However, Moyes' clearly clueless about team building on the club of our scale. We may not look as boring as LVG's team, but our quality was drifting toward Moyes' Everton level despite the quality of players in his disposal (no, it's bs that SAF's legacy model/ team is that bad like Moyes and his goons tried to convince people to believe. In the right hand and a charismatic coach to add the pulling power, that squad as a good base could have been easier to upgrade and maintain top level than after Moyes or LVG).

Hard to describe but LVG has an idea and make the players learn. The players may not be suited, but the experience would help them after LVG leaves. Moyes' simply below the level of the players and they look down on him and refused to get inline at all. LVG limits players to lay their ways. Moyes couldn't build the team, so quality players may still have freedom to shine in one game but doesn't have consistent support to keep the level. So an underperforming team vs bunch of individuals.
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ti vu said:
About this part: LVG tried to change the whole identity of the team, the football philosophy, which is huge thing considered we only 1 years apart from SAF's era. The attachment to SAF's still very strong (vs Bayern streak of manager change prior to LVG's tenure), so the transition time for LVG's project would be much longer than normal in similar school of thought (Ajax, Barcelona). This can't be made up by spending money on players as LVG's style depended on the understanding of players which need time to build. Moyes' style is similar to SAF (far apart on quality level).

Off topic here: the above is what prevented me from being caught into the Pep to United. Pep knows full well with his Bayern time that when a club favor a style and still has strong attachment to previous coach, it's harder to implement his own philosophy. To go to United would be disaster as fans are sick of possession football. City with their lack of history is perfect soil for him to build his philosophy without little to none resistance. City doesn't really have strong identity to compare and would buy into Pep's philosophy as whole if he managed to get his team perform well and bring some success. That goes for their fans and players. Pep is there to be looked up to, not to be evenly compared (criticized). Those philosopher type of managers would prefer that more than the trophy count and identity challenge at United, Bayern.
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Quote myself from another thread to save some time.
Summary:
- LVG goes against club way to build his own club!
- Moyes' clueless about the club of this size.
- LVG's club building is only in early stage considered the scale of project he tried to do (wrongly or not he has an aim)
- Moyes' destroying SAF legacy for nothing. He had no plan.
- LVG's build from more terrible state considering he inherited the desolate from Moyes. Irritated his players by changing their natural styles = players can't deliver to LVG's expectation but still a team
- Moyes inherited similar style in SAF's team, but failed to get respect from players from the get go = SAF team carried Moyes for some part hence the better statistic in some aspect, but falling into individualism.
 
Not this old chestnut again. This poll is only going to have one result. I think you should have changed it to who you hate the most as I think some fans blur this with their assessment of the ex-managers's times at United.

For me van Gaal's performance as United manager was a lot worse than Moyes but I get why people hate him more. Yeah van Gaal won the FA Cup (only just) but he was still given the boot the same day...so he couldn't have been that good. He was one game away from officially having a worse record than Moyes, he did worse in the Champions League and did worse in the transfer market. His football was by far more soul destroying than under Moyes.

I know people will dismiss these points because they hate Moyes with a passion but at the end of the day who cares. Just dredging up old stuff again. But for the record, it's van Gaal beyond any shadow of doubt for me. But I appreciate this is the minority view and that's fine by me. It's not going to affect anything.
 
Moyes:
  • we got smashed by the big teams
  • humilated by the small teams
  • gave rooney a 5 year deal
  • Got Fellaini
  • only got the job because he was scottish
The only positve from his reign was evras goal vs bayern
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Not even close?

Overall
Van Gaal's win % was worse than Moyes (52% v 53%).
We scored fewer goals per game under him than Moyes (1.29 vs 1.6) The worst in the history of the club!

2015/16
Van Gaal oversaw a season with the joint highest number of games in which we didn't score (one more than under Moyes)
He had our worst ever PL goal difference (7 worse than Moyes)
We made the most backward passes of any team in the PL
We made more fouls than any other team in the league

Those last four stats came from his second season in charge, when he had had the sort of time and money to invest in the team that Moyes could only have dreamed of. A campaign where Liverpool, Chelsea and City all fired their managers and Leicester emerged as champions. Leicester!
Click to expand...

Alternatively, Moyes took a team of champions, bought £70m of bang average player, turned them into a team that squeaked into 7th, losing to pretty much every decent team along the way. He then left us with an underwhelming Rooney on a huge contract and a Januzaj who'd grown too big for his boots and would go on to throw his career down the pan.

Van Gaal took that monstrosity of a side and turned it into a side that finished 4th and then 5th (on goal difference) and won the FA Cup. He also shipped off several players who were past their best and brought through a few bright youngsters. The year after he left we're probably in a position where we can win the league again, albeit having spent some serious cash.

Regardless, it's night and day. Never has a United team been so utterly lacking in character as under Moyes.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I firmly believe Van Gaal did worse than Moyes, when you take into account the length of their spell in charge, the money invested in the squad and the relative strength of the teams around them.
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In what world was LVG worse than Moyes? All your reasons given are relative. I mean you make the case that Moyes has been a more successful manager than Wenger by your reasoning.
Success (to me) means achieving objectives and targets set by the club. Moyes didn't achieve any, LVG achieved more than some. Also important to ask which of the 2 manager left the club in a better position than when they took over? That should give you your nswer
 
Moyes. Had a rebuild job on his hands and had no idea how to attempt it. Spent money on players that we didnt need and failed to address problems with the squad. Lets also not forget how bad the football was.

LvG started well and some of the players hes left/promoted will suit us well going forward. Last season nose dived but at least he got us a trophy
 
Moyes, for the defeats against City and the dippers - at least van Gaal gave us some brilliant moments in amongst the mediocrity, not to mention the FA Cup.
 
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