Van Gaal's 2014-15 season

FujiVice

Full Member
Joined
May 8, 2013
Messages
7,224
I watched the "Premier League years" documentary on Sky the other night, and they built it up as a pretty good season for us. It seems like decades ago now, but am I being conned or was that a pretty good year for us (in respect of how things have gone since.) If we had a better start, we'd have been well in with a chance of fighting for the title that year.

Anyone else have good memories of that season? Or is it just watching the last few games and me thinking anything is better than that shite?
 

Minimalist

New Member
Joined
Dec 10, 2013
Messages
15,091
Wasn't all that bad. Up and down like most seasons post-Ferguson but it did have Juanfield and we smashed City at Old Trafford.

Made the top four (even had a brief moment when we thought we might challenge for the title at the end). Beat Liverpool home and away after they nearly won the league the year before.

Thought we were building towards something - made the next season so much more disappointing. I had higher expectations than I do now under Mourinho, that's for sure. Thought he would get us playing total football with the right transfers.
 

AshRK

Full Member
Joined
Apr 23, 2017
Messages
12,095
Location
Canada
Should have been much better. The Leicester game killed everything. It could have been great had we won that game. Van gaal became very cautious after that game.
 

sect2k

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Mar 7, 2010
Messages
198
Location
Slovenia
Van Gaal's 2014-2015 season wasn't problematic for him, given the fall from grace the previous year, it was seen as progress, and there was a lot of hope and positivity. The problem was his second season,where thing went backwards, both in terms of results and style of play.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Penna

prath92

Full Member
Joined
Apr 24, 2015
Messages
12,322
Location
India
Was decent season tbh. We started badly and ended badly though. Falcao was disappointing though. Had huge expectations.
 

el3mel

Full Member
Joined
Oct 23, 2016
Messages
43,735
Location
Egypt
It was a poor year by all standards. The expectations were rock bottom after Moyes season so some thought it was decent but it was poor. We only had one great period (these wins over City, Liverpool and Spurs) that made everyone believe we were playing good the whole season while forgetting the dire period we were playing 3-5-2 in it.

We started the season having Rooney, RVP, Mata, Di Maria and Falcao in our attack, without any European competition and ending up scrapping 4th with 70 points. When the likes of Liverpool or Chelsea didn't get European trophies they challenged for the titles or won it.
 

Canagel

Full Member
Joined
May 26, 2016
Messages
13,888
I was really excited after the 4-0 win vs QPR with all these new signings on show. It looked like the start of something special and I really thought we had a good chance to win the PL but in the end it was an average season. Our strike force on paper looked mouthwatering but we quickly discovered Di Maria's heart wasn't in it, Falcao was a shadow of the striker he was (more the injury not the quality), Rooney was on a sharp decline and RVP was also declining. All that excitement and we ended up with Young and Fellaini as our key players by the end. The highlight were those 3 games vs Liverpool, City and Spurs.
 

SadlerMUFC

Thinks for himself
Joined
Dec 7, 2017
Messages
5,746
Location
Niagara Falls, Canada
It was horrible. Possession just for the sake of having possession and a horrible attack. I absolutely hate the 3-5-2 and LVG shoved it down our throat. Let's face it, it's really a 5-3-2. Too defensive (not that Mourinho is any better). He was also way too predictable. He played the same team every week and once you got in his bad books (Di Maria) there was no playing your way back into the first team. And those opening few games killed any chance we had to win the league (if I remember right)...
 

Minimalist

New Member
Joined
Dec 10, 2013
Messages
15,091
It was horrible. Possession just for the sake of having possession and a horrible attack. I absolutely hate the 3-5-2 and LVG shoved it down our throat. Let's face it, it's really a 5-3-2. Too defensive (not that Mourinho is any better). He was also way too predictable. He played the same team every week and once you got in his bad books (Di Maria) there was no playing your way back into the first team. And those opening few games killed any chance we had to win the league (if I remember right)...
Hardly. Unless you just started watching us that season.

Also Di Maria was shite more often than not. I can only remember about three good things he did that season. We lost nothing when he left.
 

Kapardin

New Member
Joined
Jul 6, 2017
Messages
9,917
Location
Chennai, India
Was terrible. With no Europe, we really should have challenged Chelsea but were actually scrapping for 4th. Mourinho's Chelsea team played almost similarly to our current season, except that they didn't have City going Super Saiyan to challenge their level.

We had a winning run between November-December which was mostly zombie football helped by de Gea's saves and some clinical finishing. Then the legendary mini-run against Spurs, Liverpool, Villa and City where we played okayish football. Then relapsed into mediocrity.

No Europe to cope with and yet LvG finished 4th with that squad. Should have been sacked then, but Ed was giving an interview about what a genius LvG was.
 

JoaquinJoaquin

Full Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2014
Messages
8,588
I actually looked forward to that season more than any since Fergie has been gone. Seeing Di Maria, Falcao and Shaw sign got me excited and after the 4-0 against QPR it was like the Fergie era all over again. That soon took a turn for the worse when we realised Falcao still wasn't fully fit and then the Di Maria situation (which I still believe to this day Van Gaal was mainly at fault for).

Might get panned for this, but some of the football we played that season was better than the stuff we are playing now.
 

Rockets Redglare

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Jun 23, 2015
Messages
2,576
Was terrible. With no Europe, we really should have challenged Chelsea but were actually scrapping for 4th. Mourinho's Chelsea team played almost similarly to our current season, except that they didn't have City going Super Saiyan to challenge their level.

We had a winning run between November-December which was mostly zombie football helped by de Gea's saves and some clinical finishing. Then the legendary mini-run against Spurs, Liverpool, Villa and City where we played okayish football. Then relapsed into mediocrity.

No Europe to cope with and yet LvG finished 4th with that squad. Should have been sacked then, but Ed was giving an interview about what a genius LvG was.
That little mini run was absolutely fantastic. We looked brilliant for a few games.
 

AgentP

Full Member
Joined
Jun 7, 2013
Messages
4,957
Location
Chennai
The season was a bit up and down. But I felt very positive for the next season. I thought a good start with Depay and Di Maria fully integrated into the team would get us challenging for the title. How wrong I was!
 

Wednesday at Stoke

Full Member
Joined
Feb 11, 2014
Messages
21,629
Location
Copenhagen
Supports
Time Travel
LvGs recruitment was poor so he had sub standard players trying to play total football. Especially the midfield was Blind, Carrick, fellaini and herrera with some Rooney thrown in.

When Carrick was fit, our football was good but when he often wasn't we'd regress into zombie mode with no cutting edge.
 

Skills

Snitch
Joined
Jan 17, 2012
Messages
42,010
Was terrible. With no Europe, we really should have challenged Chelsea but were actually scrapping for 4th. Mourinho's Chelsea team played almost similarly to our current season, except that they didn't have City going Super Saiyan to challenge their level.

We had a winning run between November-December which was mostly zombie football helped by de Gea's saves and some clinical finishing. Then the legendary mini-run against Spurs, Liverpool, Villa and City where we played okayish football. Then relapsed into mediocrity.

No Europe to cope with and yet LvG finished 4th with that squad. Should have been sacked then, but Ed was giving an interview about what a genius LvG was.
Still to this day I'm bemused why he ever changed from that. It felt like something had finally clicked in the squad with the set up, then he ripped it all up and started again.
 

MadDogg

Full Member
Joined
Apr 24, 2002
Messages
15,809
Location
Manchester Utd never lose, just run out of time
It was a significant improvement over the previous Moyes season, and we could see what LVG was trying to build so we were mostly happy and quietly confident he'd continue to improve us further.

The following season it all fell apart, with LVG showing that he wasn't able to get the current set of players to play as he wanted, wasn't able to modify his tactics to get the results needed, and also didn't seem able to sign the right players to suit.
 

Skills

Snitch
Joined
Jan 17, 2012
Messages
42,010
LvGs recruitment was poor so he had sub standard players trying to play total football. Especially the midfield was Blind, Carrick, fellaini and herrera with some Rooney thrown in.

When Carrick was fit, our football was good but when he often wasn't we'd regress into zombie mode with no cutting edge.
It's funny this is now a consensus opinion, but believe it or not there were many people on here who wanted to keep on as DoF because apparently he was signing good players but shite at coaching :lol:
 

Smores

Full Member
Joined
May 18, 2011
Messages
25,496
Nah it was shite but in the context of the previous season was better. I had very high hopes that summer and they slowly evaporated into despair.

I think it depends if you bought into his philosophy crap, the only ones who seemed to enjoy it in second half was those who read his books and parroted it all back to us thinking they were clever.
 

Di Maria's angel

Captain of Moanchester United
Joined
Mar 19, 2014
Messages
14,762
Location
London
It really wasn't that good. Knocked by MK Dons in August, beaten at home by Arsenal in the FA Cup. We had two good runs whilst the rest of the season was really meh. We had a great opportunity to finish 2nd with a strong run but we ended the season with 1 win in 6 whilst being embarrassed by Chelsea, Everton and WBA, IIRC.
 

Minimalist

New Member
Joined
Dec 10, 2013
Messages
15,091
It's funny this is now a consensus opinion, but believe it or not there were many people on here who wanted to keep on as DoF because apparently he was signing good players but shite at coaching :lol:
Really?

Nah it was the complete opposite. His management of people/players/transfers was his downfall.
 

Minimalist

New Member
Joined
Dec 10, 2013
Messages
15,091
It really wasn't that good. Knocked by MK Dons in August, beaten at home by Arsenal in the FA Cup. We had two good runs whilst the rest of the season was really meh. We had a great opportunity to finish 2nd with a strong run but we ended the season with 1 win in 6 whilst being embarrassed by Chelsea, Everton and WBA, IIRC.
Ah yes, the embarassing 1-0 defeat to the eventual champions at their home ground while we dominated the play for large periods.
 

Skills

Snitch
Joined
Jan 17, 2012
Messages
42,010
Really?

Nah it was the complete opposite. His management of people/players/transfers was his downfall.
Everything was his downfall. He couldn't see what was going on the pitch (baffling tactics/subs), was poor at recruiting & the fans/players were sick of his personality by the end of his 2 years.
 

VeevaVee

The worst "V"
Scout
Joined
Jan 3, 2009
Messages
46,248
Location
Manchester
The only thing that made it look good was that we briefly looked better than under Moyes. 'Turning point'
 

groovyalbert

it's a mute point
Joined
Feb 14, 2013
Messages
9,608
Location
London
I thought that, with our signings that summer, this was the season Rooney was going to be fazed out. He ended up our top scorer and most influential attacker. Says a lot about the state of that squad.

His celebration against Tottenham - and the run of fixtures against Liverpool, Spurs and City - were very enjoyable though.
 

Ainu

Full Member
Joined
Mar 10, 2008
Messages
10,130
Location
Antwerp, Belgium
It was decent because it followed Moyes' horror season and at least we finished top 4 again. There was that short period of great performances against other strong teams, including Juanfield which was great. But the big name signings failed completely and by the end our league performances weren't exactly great. His next season would be a lot worse of course, despite the positivity at the end of it with Rashford's breakthrough and the FA Cup win.

Fun fact: we ended up closer to the title on points than we are right now.
 

Van Gaalacticos

Full Member
Joined
Sep 22, 2014
Messages
1,040
The decent bits about LVGs reign were the FA cup, the results against City, Pool and the Spuds where we did look excellent to be fair.

Bringing though some youth players was good and I enjoyed his personality in pressers etc but it wasn't anywhere near a Manchester United premier league standard season and it just got worse.
 

Sylar

Full Member
Joined
May 15, 2007
Messages
40,254
Weird season. We started of slow (didnt we start of with 352 which we kinda used in pre season but with different players which made us believe we actually had a plan post moyes)
but then had that influx of players that saw us win 4-0 against QPR. Then the next game(?) we were 3-1 up against Leicester. I remember Falcao hitting the bar with an excellent shot. Then it all crumbled. We were playing 442 diamond right? Blind holding. herrera and Di Maria. With Rooney, RVP and Falcao.

That collapse saw us go so much more defensively. With weird decisions like playing DiMaria uptop after he was doing well in midfield. And other bizarre changes where we were never consistent

But then it seemed like with a DiMaria sending off late into the season in the FA Cup, LVG kinda lucked into a 433 (which strangely enough, was what a lot of people were crying out for given our players.)

We finished on a high (until Carricks injury against City). The triangle on the right with Herrera, Mata and Valencia was fun to watch. Carrick was controlling our midfield nicely. Fellaini was really useful on the left of three (which again, made the most sense cos he was never a midfield 2 type of guy). And then we ended the season looking like we had a shot to finish second but finished 4th. LVG gave that crazy drunk awards speech.

But then he made signings which made us turn into a 4231 for the next season which went away from what would have still been the best formation given our players, 433. Given we had no Europe that season, we really should have done better than we did but it seemed like we were light on defensive options and top heavy.
 

charlenefan

Far less insightful than the other Charley
Joined
Aug 17, 2005
Messages
33,052
It was definitely better than the second season as that's when the boring football came (ironically the same situation we're in now with Jose)

Who will ever forget Rooney's silent domination :keano:
 

Big Ben Foster

Correctly predicted Portugal to win Euro 2016
Joined
Mar 19, 2008
Messages
12,454
Location
BR -> MI -> TX
Supports
Also support Vasco da Gama
That season was the definition of a false dawn.

LVG's two seasons saw our rivals all look horrible to mediocre and yet we only managed to scrape 4th and 5th.
 

U99ted

Full Member
Joined
Jan 1, 2013
Messages
2,349
Van Gaal should have done better if anything. We were 4 points in front of City when we beat them 4-2 and there were only 6 games to go. We ended up 9 points behind them. We lost at home to Arsenal in the FA Cup when that was easily attainable. 2nd and the FA Cup is what he should have got.

Not to mention we were disgracefully knocked out of the League Cup before the 3rd round. We played largely dull football outside of QPR and 2 good six game winning runs.
 

Jim Beam

Gets aroused by men in low socks
Joined
Feb 10, 2017
Messages
13,013
Location
All over the place
Those famous 3 games against Spurs, Liverpool and City did give us an optimism for a new season. And we had CL again.
But, comparing expectations at the start of the season with our overall campaign, it was pretty bad and disappointing. Falcao and Di Maria turned out to be flops by the turn of the year, instead of being players who will lead us to the new title.
 

bosnian_red

Worst scout to ever exist
Joined
Aug 13, 2011
Messages
57,577
Location
Canada
Was very stop start but improved a lot as the season went on and had a great run of big wins close to the end of the season to all but seal top 4 for us. Last few games we lost form but that was attributed at the time to just the season being done basically so nobody read much into it. Wasn't all that bad though. There were actual good performances mixed in throughout the season, but a lot of just being functional too.
 

Wednesday at Stoke

Full Member
Joined
Feb 11, 2014
Messages
21,629
Location
Copenhagen
Supports
Time Travel
Was very stop start but improved a lot as the season went on and had a great run of big wins close to the end of the season to all but seal top 4 for us. Last few games we lost form but that was attributed at the time to just the season being done basically so nobody read much into it. Wasn't all that bad though. There were actual good performances mixed in throughout the season, but a lot of just being functional too.
I think we got done in by the injuries too, we were trending up and Chelsea were looking shaky so a late challenge wasn't off the cards. Unfortunately Carrick, Phil Jones & Blind got injured at once and we were again left with Herrera, Rooney in midfield, Paddy McNair in defense when we visited Chelsea. Falcao got bollocked by Terry once and disappeared.
 

Charlie Foley

Full Member
Joined
Mar 11, 2012
Messages
18,308
Bit of an odd season but not a terrible one. Started poorly, 5 points from 5 games, and 13 from 10. But I remember feeling we were moving in the right direction, even though (I think) we had less points than that stage under Moyes, we were on the way up with LVG whereas Moyes was a decline from a great height. The performance away to City with 10 men was as good as it could be in the circumstances, especially having been destroyed there the year before. And a good tactical performance in that home draw to Chelsea (though why Rafael was marking Drogba on a corner I'm not sure!)

We all remember the great run in the Spring, but there was a good run that November/December where we won 6 in a row, and 7 out of 8. Including that 3-0 against Liverpool with DDG saving everything :drool: There were a few ropey performances (we were very open against Liverpool, and Southampton away were rescued by RVP) but we were winning, and some players were starting to play well-I think Carrick was doing really well, in the middle of our defence, Young impressing at full back, RVP starting to score again, and I actually thought Falcao was starting to look better. Our first 45 minutes away to Tottenham (we ended up drawing 0-0) was one of the best performances I've seen from us at Spurs, I have no idea how we didn't score.

There was another bad run around the new year. I remember bringing my girlfriend to watch the home game against Southampton and marveling at her patience. She's American so not a huge football fan, but she sat through it. I have no idea how :lol: Everyone was pretty down on LVG then. We had half a cup run but the performances weren't giving much comfort iirc, and the loss to Arsenal was right before we played Spurs in the league I think. That Spurs came felt like a real shot in the harm, Rooney had been moved up front around then (I think against Preston?) and we had a bit more movement up top. Di Maria's red card seemed a blessing in disguise because we had to change formation somewhat. We had that rear pointed triangle in midfield, and the triangles of Blind, Fellaini, Young on the left, and Valencia, Herrera, Mata on the right. A month of really great football (with another 6 game winning run in the league) but Carrick's injury at the end of the City game really screwed us I feel, he was so crucial to that formation.

The end of the season was shite, three losses in a row with no goals scored, RVP playing in midfield against WBA and seeming so old and stiff. What's crazy is outside our first 10 and last 6 games (where we picked up 13, and 6 points respectively) we actually had a very impressive points tally of 51 from 22 games. So a poor start (which felt like a hangover from the Moyes era) and a poor end (injuries and the season petering out as it always seems to these days) but I had hope that whether through accident or design we had found a system that really worked, where we knew what we were doing, the players had clear roles that played to their strengths.

The reliance on Carrick worried me at the time, I felt we'd fallen apart once he got injured (though Herrera played that deep role surprisingly well at the Bridge the week after). So I was pretty excited when we bought the Schmidfield that summer, we seemed to have real strength in depth then. Sadly, and I think this is a big issue with our football that next season, LVG tried to flip our midfield with 2 deep and one in front, when it seemed we had the players for 1 behind 2.