Van Gaal

dirkey

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the bold part is silly - I didnt say they were horrible

Martial and Rashford were our brightest players but generally no players in that system excelled - if you think they did well we can just agree to disagree

we had about a month of genuinely great football in Van Gaals time at the club when we beat Spurs, City and Liverpool at Anfield.

aside of that you had a largely ineffective team in spite of his spending- he hasn't a clue how to use Di Maria and there were many games where we fashioned only a shot or two on target

as for Rafael - hes the last right back we had that had a great season albeit in Fergie's final season - hes been very decent by all accounts for Lyon whilst Valencia and Young have been very limited players.
It's genuinely mind boggling to me that people can be arguing that Van Gaal did a decent job, or that we shouldn't have sacked him. How can they forget just how bad the football was? I mean, it was only a few years ago. Good god.
 

Kaglish10

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There absolutely is a massive amount wrong with it. It shows you basically haven't a clue what you're doing. You can't tell from training who is ready and who isn't? Putting a young player into the team when they're not ready can be a huge mistake, can set them back massively.

It shows he can't evaluate players. We can tell that from his transfer policy too.
He won the CL with Ajax kids. If he didn't promote Muller, Kroos and switched Schweisteiger from his wing role to a midfield role, Germany may not have won the world cup in 2014 or got to the 3rd place final in 2010. He promoted Iniesta too for the Spaniards.

There's nothing wrong in trusting quality kids. The only problems is when these kids are not good enough, like the lot of Arsenal kids or the likes of Blackett, James Reece, McNair who weren't good. If Van Gaal could get something out of 2nd rate young talents such as Rashford, Lingard, CBJ etc what did you think he would have done with 1st rate talents such as Mbappe, Foden, De Ligt in his team? I feel Van Gaal is a manager who loves to work with kids because they are easier to teach than adults who are already set in their ways.

Van Gaal utilising the likes of Rashford, Lingard, CBJ wasn't a lucky dip because he's always been a manager who loves working with kids in all clubs he has managed after all, he signed Martial, a young kid.

the bold part is silly - I didnt say they were horrible

Martial and Rashford were our brightest players but generally no players in that system excelled - if you think they did well we can just agree to disagree

we had about a month of genuinely great football in Van Gaals time at the club when we beat Spurs, City and Liverpool at Anfield.

aside of that you had a largely ineffective team in spite of his spending- he hasn't a clue how to use Di Maria and there were many games where we fashioned only a shot or two on target

as for Rafael - hes the last right back we had that had a great season albeit in Fergie's final season - hes been very decent by all accounts for Lyon whilst Valencia and Young have been very limited players.
This is really funny. No players excelled yet Rashford, Martial, Lingard, CBJ excelled in the setup? Isn't that contradictory? That's if we even choose to ignore the likes of Smalling, Blind and Carrick who slotted seamlessly in the setup.

If no player excelled in Van Gaal's stifling setup as some of you would have us think, which of these players that were stifled by Van Gaal's supposed negative setup excelled under Mourinho? I bet Herrera was able to show these supposed creativity, incisiveness and tempo dictating he failed to show under Van Gaal's supposed negative setup that stifled him despite Carrick and Schweisteiger having no problem to showcase theirs. As well as the likes of Darmain, Rojo, ageing Rooney etc who also showed these wonderful skills they all failed to show under Van Gaal. It's time we realised that Van Gaal did his best with the average squad he had.

Rafael hardly had a full season for us beacuse he was always injured and moreover, he was horrible for Lyon when he first came. I don't know about now but I don't regret him being shipped out.
 
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VeevaVee

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I really can't believe we still have fans who stick up for van Gaal. He is a major reason as to why we are in such a mess, he did an absolutely abhorrent job of re-building the squad and wasted vast amount of money on incredibly shit players. I mean just look at this squad

And also this, in case folks had forgotten.

I need to stop coming in to this thread. I'm getting ptsd
 

dirkey

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He won the CL with Ajax kids. If he didn't promote Muller, Kroos and switched Schweisteiger from his wing role to a midfield role, Germany may not have won the world cup in 2014 or get to the 3rd place final 2010. He promoted Iniesta too for the Spaniards.

There's nothing wrong in trusting quality kids. The only problems is when these kids are not good enough, like the lot of Arsenal kids or the likes of Blackett, James Reece, McNair who weren't good. If Van Gaal could get something out of 2nd rate young talents such as Rashford, Lingard, CBJ etc what did you think he would have done with talents such as Mbappe, Foden, De Ligt in his team? I feel Van Gaal is a manager who loves to work with kids because they are easier to teach than adults who are already set in their ways.

Van Gaal utilising the likes of Rashford, Lingard, CBJ wasn't a lucky dip because he's always been a manager who loves working with kids in all clubs he has managed after all, he signed Martial, a young kid.
It was lucky dip. He fired loads of them in there to see who stuck. Even Rashford. Only got his chance because Keane (think it was Keane?) got injured in the warm up for the Europa game. So even then, he was picking the wrong youngster.

His Ajax team was absolutely incredible. But that was 30 years ago. People need to move on from that. He did an absolutely terrible job at United, and the team was getting worse at the end of his tenure. Did he do one or two things right? Yes. But for every 1 correct decision he made 10 incorrect.
 

Champagne Football

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Van Gaal for me was the biggest footballing charlatan you could find. He did great things at Ajax but the Ajax team he managaged had the greatest collection of young superstars-to-be that the world has ever seen.

His decision not to buy Artoro Vidal when he was available was his biggest mistake. Fellow Dutch man, Virgil Van Dijk was available for peanuts too from Celtic.

In hindsight giving Van Gaal the job at Utd was as daft as say Barcelona announcing tomorrow that Bruce Arena will be appointed their new manager.
 

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LvG had flaws but you could see the team was coached. We played with low tempo and couldn't break down oppo' defense other than those Louis is the type of manager United should hire.
A 60+ year old who hadn’t really won anything since the 1990’s is the type of manager United should hire?

Since the turn of the century he almost relegated Barcelona (he was fired when they were hovering 3 points off relegation at the end of the season) and had to ply his trade in fecking AZ Alkmaar for 4 years.

Then he scraped a singular Bundesliga title with Bayern in an unconvincing fashion before finishing 3rd and getting fired again. Finishing 3rd with Bayern is pretty spectacular in and of itself.

His reputation since the 1990s has been propped up by his Netherlands ”successes” (finishing third with Robben, RVP and Sneijder after going to penalties vs Costa Rica is apparently a major success).

He was good in the 1990’s. Glaringly outdated for club football by the time we got him.
 
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Aloysius's Back 3

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There absolutely is a massive amount wrong with it. It shows you basically haven't a clue what you're doing. You can't tell from training who is ready and who isn't? Putting a young player into the team when they're not ready can be a huge mistake, can set them back massively.

It shows he can't evaluate players. We can tell that from his transfer policy too.
He says he keeps a low squad number just so he can try out kids. This is exactly what happened when we as a club went through an injury crisis in his 2nd year.

Again - LVG came to Bayern & Barcelona with the expectation to win titles & he spent time introducing some generational talents in to their first teams. What happened at United? He wasn't told to go win the titles, he was told to get European football qualifications for his tenure whilst building the club for Giggs to take over afterwards.

It's no surprise he used a lucky dip approach because what he did was get rid of the older dross to make room for more younger players.

At the end of the 2nd season we had TFM, CBJ, Shaw, Poole, Rashford, Lingard, Martial, Gomes and more who were in the squads at various levels be training or playing jn matches & this would have only gotten deeper and better had LVG continued on to his 3rd year.

We would have another 5-7 young players in the first team fighting out for spots and LVG would have a near full squad of young players that took over the older players within 3 years.

Now I'm not going to sit here and pretend that this squad at 3 years would all be world class, title winning kids on their first or second season - but the fact is Ole as manager on his first season is going to concentrate and do the exact same things that LVG did & you see it with him already using young players who are craving for the next free pre season to break through.


That's why I said - Ole after LVG would have been heavenly.

Jose after LVG was just a cluster of opposite habit, ideas and philosophy & is the reason why woodward has to now prove himself to retain his role.
 

Varun

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You simply cannot fail at getting results AND boring the shit out of everyone at a club like United and still have the job. Regardless of his ideas being great or not, he didn't give us a choice.
 

dirkey

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He says he keeps a low squad number just so he can try out kids. This is exactly what happened when we as a club went through an injury crisis in his 2nd year.

Again - LVG came to Bayern & Barcelona with the expectation to win titles & he spent time introducing some generational talents in to their first teams. What happened at United? He wasn't told to go win the titles, he was told to get European football qualifications for his tenure whilst building the club for Giggs to take over afterwards.

It's no surprise he used a lucky dip approach because what he did was get rid of the older dross to make room for more younger players.

At the end of the 2nd season we had TFM, CBJ, Shaw, Poole, Rashford, Lingard, Martial, Gomes and more who were in the squads at various levels be training or playing jn matches & this would have only gotten deeper and better had LVG continued on to his 3rd year.

We would have another 5-7 young players in the first team fighting out for spots and LVG would have a near full squad of young players that took over the older players within 3 years.

Now I'm not going to sit here and pretend that this squad at 3 years would all be world class, title winning kids on their first or second season - but the fact is Ole as manager on his first season is going to concentrate and do the exact same things that LVG did & you see it with him already using young players who are craving for the next free pre season to break through.


That's why I said - Ole after LVG would have been heavenly.

Jose after LVG was just a cluster of opposite habit, ideas and philosophy & is the reason why woodward has to now prove himself to retain his role.
He's not doing the exact same things though. He has clearly identified a few players who are ready, or close to ready. And he's slowly integrating them.

Louis was just firing guys in and hoping for the best. That's massively damaging in a lot of cases to young players who aren't ready for that level of pressure.
 

Aloysius's Back 3

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He's not doing the exact same things though. He has clearly identified a few players who are ready, or close to ready. And he's slowly integrating them.

Louis was just firing guys in and hoping for the best. That's massively damaging in a lot of cases to young players who aren't ready for that level of pressure.
How is giving chances damaging exactly? Few players took the chances and some players didn't & truth be told alot of the players like Mcnair & Blackett showed that they lack the ability to play football to the level of United & has gone on to prove it at other clubs.

LVG was trackloading kids on to the pitch because his role was to build a young team for Giggs to take over whilst also qualifying for the UCL. If he was to only pick the 1,2 or 3 young players and give them a random 20 mins a game to play at then we wouldn't know who could step up and don't - arguably the reason we wait for pre season to introduce the younger players. More importantly as LVG said he reduced his squad to let there be ample space for kids to come from multiple positions - if he was going to take the slow, tried and tested type introduction of youngsters for 20 mins in a carabao cup - he would need much more level of players that were experienced - like you saw the year before with RVP, Rooney, Falcao, Di Maria, Mata, Fellaini etc.
 

buckooo1978

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Its unforgivable to sell 5 players whose careers just went downhill afterwards? Maybe with the exception of Zaha. One of the things LvG did best was to clear out the squad.
a lot of these players struggled under Van Gaal but, like under Mourinho in 2018, you could count the number of players performing consistently good on one hand

the main issue I had was after spending all that money he didnt improve the team

Darmian was not better than Rafarl
Depay worse than Nani/Hernandez
Schneiderlein/Schweinsteiger worse than Fletcher proved to be for West Brom
Rojo/Blind weren't any better than Johnny Evans

meanwhile a player like Zaha disnt get a chance under him or Moyes - such a waste of talent/resources

how much did he blow on transfers and ended up relying on Fellaini in many games?
 

dirkey

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How is giving chances damaging exactly? Few players took the chances and some players didn't & truth be told alot of the players like Mcnair & Blackett showed that they lack the ability to play football to the level of United & has gone on to prove it at other clubs.

LVG was trackloading kids on to the pitch because his role was to build a young team for Giggs to take over whilst also qualifying for the UCL. If he was to only pick the 1,2 or 3 young players and give them a random 20 mins a game to play at then we wouldn't know who could step up and don't - arguably the reason we wait for pre season to introduce the younger players. More importantly as LVG said he reduced his squad to let there be ample space for kids to come from multiple positions - if he was going to take the slow, tried and tested type introduction of youngsters for 20 mins in a carabao cup - he would need much more level of players that were experienced - like you saw the year before with RVP, Rooney, Falcao, Di Maria, Mata, Fellaini etc.
Because it knocks their confidence. Sometimes if a player isn't ready, a damage to confidence is huge and a stunt to their development.

That's the thing. McNair, Blackett - it was obvious IMMEDIATELY that they weren't ready. Louis should have known that before he put them in. He didn't. He was just firing guys in and hoping for the best.

His job was to coach those young players up, get them ready for the first team, and put them in when they were ready. Not just fire them in willy nilly and hope for the best. Identify who had the talent, coach them, prepare them.
 

dirkey

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a lot of these players struggled under Van Gaal but, like under Mourinho in 2018, you could count the number of players performing consistently good on one hand

the main issue I had was after spending all that money he didnt improve the team

Darmian was not better than Rafarl
Depay worse than Nani/Hernandez
Schneiderlein/Schweinsteiger worse than Fletcher proved to be for West Brom
Rojo/Blind weren't any better than Johnny Evans

meanwhile a player like Zaha disnt get a chance under him or Moyes - such a waste of talent/resources

how much did he blow on transfers and ended up relying on Fellaini in many games?
Exactly. This goes on to my point that I'm making about his lack of ability to identify talent that was worthwhile keeping and coaching up. He just couldn't identify talent, full stop. His signings were just dismal.
 

Kaglish10

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It was lucky dip. He fired loads of them in there to see who stuck. Even Rashford. Only got his chance because Keane (think it was Keane?) got injured in the warm up for the Europa game. So even then, he was picking the wrong youngster.

His Ajax team was absolutely incredible. But that was 30 years ago. People need to move on from that. He did an absolutely terrible job at United, and the team was getting worse at the end of his tenure. Did he do one or two things right? Yes. But for every 1 correct decision he made 10 incorrect.
Fire loads of them or fired loads of average kids such as McNair, Blackett, James Reece, Joko etc? Are you simply saying these kids would have amounted to something at Manutd? Didn't he give several chances to McNair, Blackett James Reece even at the detriment of the team and to the ire of the fans who deemed them not good enough and wanted them out? This revisionism is really something.

You said he had wanted to use Keane back then but let me ask you, was Keane proven at higher level for Van Gaal to have trusted him? He could have easily played Depay in the striker role for example, similar to how Mourinho used Hazard as his false 9 striker when he had problem with injuries at Chelsea rather than bother himself with Chelsea's academy kids. Van Gaal could have done same but preferred to trust Keane and Rashford also. How was that a lucky dip? It's really hard for some people to give Van Gaal the credit he deserves.

If it was about Van Gaal taking punts on lot of average players such as Darmain, Rojo, injury ridden Falcao, injury prone ageing Schweisteiger etc, I wouldn't argue against that but to say he was lucky with the idea of playing kids which had always been his principles in all clubs he's managed isn't right.

Also, he got the best out of the average ageing squad he had under him and won the FA cup with them as well as got fighting for the top four till the very end which we only lost out on goal difference. This was the same manager that got the best out of the ageing average Dutch national team and got them to the 3rd place final. Personally, I feel he's better at managing a national team, from which he could dip his hands into the plethora of talents and build a team with them like he did at the worldcup. Better still, he would do great at a club that has terrific talent pool such as Ajax's academy kids with whom he could build a good team. His judgements in the transfer window are a bit sketchy but he's capable of getting the best out of good players. In fact, I feel he would do wonders with the squad we have right now.
 
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Sylar

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People trying to argue lvg wasn't a failure is still too funny :lol:

Apparently he got the best out of an average squad _ one that finished 5th.
His transfers "are a bit sketchy" ahaha

Like it's arguable whether it was good or not.
He was a failure given the amount of money he was given to bring in players to play to his style

The turnover under him was huge and yet we had games where fellaini was up front or rvp and Rooney was in midfield
 

bond19821982

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He was right? Ive never got this fascination around having a ball playing keeper, his job is to stop the ball going in the net, he does that better than anyone in the world and i wouldnt swap him for anyone

Its a bit like saying you would prefer a 15 goal a season striker who can track back and defend really well over ronaldo
He had a plan and he wanted to play that way. Whats wrong in that ?. He was not clueless because he wanted to replace ddg but rather he was clear what he expected from his GK.

Pep replaced their legend GK with Bravo. Same policy isnt it?
 

bond19821982

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De gea saves him during the first season totally. Without him we would not have got champions league football. We almost sold him in the last second and would not have managed to buy another keeper. He has been poor this season though, but selling him at his peak would not have been the best idea unless we got someone like Ter Stegen right now or Oblak.

Many teams did press high and teams have always tried to play out from the back. Chelsea under Mourinho didn't though. Spurs did it although not too well at that time. I could have identified the same problem and I have wanted to play
with high press for many years. Doesn't make me a good manager at all though.

He did buy Blind for other areas, but it didn't work out that well. As a left back Blind did well too though. I liked Blind and not sure we should have sold him, but it has hardly a massive sucess really to buy him.

We had control in some games, but also not too much in others. The formation and team that beat Spurs, Liverpool and City within 4 games was put together due to fluke. Van Persie and di maria had injuries and Falcao had been useless for so bloody long. All his ideas about who to start had failed and he started playing with Fellaini and Herrera who both played really well.

Most of the players he did buy for us failed and we didn't even buy Mane. Why buy Depay and Martial if he did think Mane was better?
He wanted to sign Mane . Depay was left, Martial centre and Mane on right (pedro was also an option).

We did a high press and it was quite good . Agree it failed miserably at times (arsenalaway)with Bastian in midfield . That's why I said, may be it would have worked with better players .
 

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People trying to argue lvg wasn't a failure is still too funny :lol:

Apparently he got the best out of an average squad _ one that finished 5th.
His transfers "are a bit sketchy" ahaha

Like it's arguable whether it was good or not.
He was a failure given the amount of money he was given to bring in players to play to his style

The turnover under him was huge and yet we had games where fellaini was up front or rvp and Rooney was in midfield
Remember the QPR game when he played Di Maria as a striker and Rooney as a midfield?

Also the Spurs game after we went 3-0 he put Young as a striker While Rashford was present and playing on the wing in the same game.

I didn't even do similar things while playing ultimate team.
 

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He had a plan and he wanted to play that way. Whats wrong in that ?. He was not clueless because he wanted to replace ddg but rather he was clear what he expected from his GK.

Pep replaced their legend GK with Bravo. Same policy isnt it?
That plan was crap. That what was wrong with it.
 

Saffron

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He had a plan and he wanted to play that way. Whats wrong in that ?. He was not clueless because he wanted to replace ddg but rather he was clear what he expected from his GK.

Pep replaced their legend GK with Bravo. Same policy isnt it?
Not the same at all. Hart was always a pretty average keeper who got found out by Pep and subsequently the rest of the footballing world. There’s a reason he went trough 3 subpar clubs after City and isn’t even the first choice keeper at Burnley now. Good keepers just don’t drop off the face of the earth at 29.

That’s one of the reasons Pep is a good manager and LVG is a bad one. Pep can identify someone’s actual talent level.

If United would sell DDG, no way he goes to Torino. He goes to Real Madrid.
 

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Remember the QPR game when he played Di Maria as a striker and Rooney as a midfield?

Also the Spurs game after we went 3-0 he put Young as a striker While Rashford was present and playing on the wing in the same game.

I didn't even do similar things while playing ultimate team.
Jose and Ole are guilty of similar choices.
 

bond19821982

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Ahh yes a dark mark on United's history whilst everything before and after him has been glowing in delight.

LVG has a history of poor transfers & he did just that here.

However - he was bought here to create a team for Giggs the new manager. Do you not remember? He got rid of all the old tosh on their last feet and started replacing them with his own generally rubbish players or some younger players. He said it would take 3 years to do so and we gave up 2 years.


Just because someone wasn't successful in the terms of Manchester United fans and their search for instant glory does not mean that the manager is a failure.

We went from LVG trying to build a team for Giggs to bloody getting Jose who wanted Zlatan Ibrahimovic playing every last breath as a striker whilst everyone else was spread around him. The same with the 40 year old Matic.

The running of United is awful & the only reason @bond19821982 & @Kaglish10 are saying positives about LVG now is that it's getting more and more clear that if a manager like Ole had come in after 3 years of LVG things would have been better.
LVG in one last season found some good players & would have continued to do so in his final third year. Even more so he would have continued to breed these players in to trying to control the match by possession, position and power like he always did before asking Ole or another homegrown manager to do the flair/crispy work that LVG was never good at.
Spot on. Not saying he was great or a huge success . He had a vision and he wanted to implement that. Despite the tumescent football, we still made to top 4 first season and missed it only on GD next year. Where are we now? Do we even look like a team with a plan?

With a right DOF he could have been a success with better players . Yes, its all assumptioms but he did try to implement some new ideas within the team.

People rave about Pep but he also has the same blue print as that of LVG. If we had a Silva or Aguero it might have worked better.
 

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I can accept these when you don't have decent options, but Young as a striker when Rashford was playing the same game on the flank?
Ole picked Young at CB, with Jones and possibly Bailly to choose from.

Jose likewise in a bid to prove he was right done something similar.

I'm not arguing LVG was right to do so but all our coaches have done daft things in recent years.
 

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Ole picked Young at CB, with Jones and possibly Bailly to choose from.

Jose likewise in a bid to prove he was right done something similar.

I'm not arguing LVG was right to do so but all our coaches have done daft things in recent years.
Nothing will top this Spurs game for me. All these can be excused one way or another but not this because Rashford and Young were on the same pitch but he switched their position for no reason.

It wasn't just this as well. Van Gaal was fecking up with the lineup and trying crap position changing whenever he had a full fit squad. Surprise but we only played well under him when we had injuries and he was forced to play a specific formation without testing his "ideas". Once he got his players back from injuries he started fecking up the lineup and we were back to being shite again.
 

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I agree with the sentiment. The treatment of LvG on here by brainless morons who are willing to write-off LvGs entire CV to convince themselves the likes of Mata, Herrera, Shaw, Rashford and Martial are world-class talents is embarassing

The man was a legendary coach who won almost everything the game had to offer and managed some of the greatest players ever to play the game. The fact that he couldn't take a FrankenTeam of not good enough's, never will be's and has-beens and have them dominate English football is not a reflection on him at all

BTW - you could say exactly the same about Jose. It's easier for fans to blame the manager because it deludes them that we are just "one competent manager" away from another treble and they live in this mythical Football Manager-style simulation where players abilities are ranked and defined by a spreadsheet, you can sign 15 players in a window and sell the same number, contracts are handled by the manager who offers wages using a toggle bar, tactics are moving a counter around a 2D pitch and you can "motivate" a player by clicking a mouse

I"ll go as far to say anyone who think any of our managers are to blame are actually detrimental to the long term health of the club
I started reading your post and the opening line had me agreeing but to then write off the likes of Rashford and Martial completely? Daft!

There's a happy medium in your sentiments to be found here.

At the point of winning the FA Cup and LVG's sacking and Jose impending arrival, we had 2 of world footballs hottest young talents in Rashford and Martial. The latter won the world young player of the year award for his efforts in his debut season. With the right coach taking over, or perhaps LVG staying for that final 3rd year, we might well have a genuine world class attacking player in Martial on our hands and possibly another with Rashford.

Instead what happened? Jose phased out Martial almost completely. Lukaku played nearly the same amount of minutes last season as Martial did over Jose entire tenure at the club. He was clearly a young kid with huge potential and he ruined the kid those 2 years, we need to get him back on track now with Ole.

The bold part is absolutely ridiculous, are you seriously telling me Jose was not at fault at all? It wasn't Jose's fault for falling out with everyone at the club and by that I mean even the backroom staff? Right through to the cleaning ladies and even the club receptionist! The man was pure poison, He has done this repeatedly at his last 3 clubs. Jose publicly slandered the club, its players, the board and its fans. He told them not to attend games, he undermined our history continually. Something many supporters aren't aware of that Jose done was to show up at the 50th anniversary of Munich in a feckin tracksuit! He was lectured and told to put on a club sports jacket with the club crest and the pics of him at the ceremony are grim, sulking like a petulant child.

The man didn't care one single iota about our great club. It meant nothing to him what so ever.

LVG on the other hand, he very much respected our club traditions and done his upmost to always keep that in mind. I agree the football was painful to watch but I'm fully convinced that if he had season 3 he would of added to our attack and tweaked it to be more entertaining.

a disaster transfer wise

sold Rafael, Van Persie, Evans, Kagawa, Nani, Zaha, Michael Keane for about 25-28 million combined

bought Schneiderlein for the money recouped

Zaha, Kagawa, Keane and Rafael should all still be valuable squad members
Wasn't a disaster at all, all those players were rightly sold.

RVP was getting injured regularly again and hasn't done much of anything since he left.

Rafael like wise was a sick note. He was a superb RB and there wasn't any doubt over his quality, just his ability to stay fit.

Kagawa never settled to PL football, Ferguson misused him throughout and he never stepped up in reality.

Nani, likewise went on to do nowt and hardly made us eat humble pie.

The one we ballsed up was Zaha, that's about it.
 

Keefy18

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A 60+ year old who hadn’t really won anything since the 1990’s is the type of manager United should hire?

Since the turn of the century he almost relegated Barcelona (he was fired when they were hovering 3 points off relegation at the end of the season) and had to ply his trade in fecking AZ Alkmaar for 4 years.

Then he scraped a singular Bundesliga title with Bayern in an unconvincing fashion before finishing 3rd and getting fired again. Finishing 3rd with Bayern is pretty spectacular in and of itself.

His reputation since the 1990s has been propped up by his Netherlands ”successes” (finishing third with Robben, RVP and Sneijder after going to penalties vs Costa Rica is apparently a major success).

He was good in the 1990’s. Glaringly outdated for club football by the time we got him.
He finished 3rd with an utter pish Dutch side in the WC prior to joining us. That couldn't be replicated since his retirement, coincidence?

He also won the Bundesliga double in in 2010 as you say and was only stopped doing the Treble by a certain Inter side led by none other than Jose Mourinho.

I wouldn't exactly say he done nothing in the last decade or so.
 

dirkey

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Fire loads of them or fired loads of average kids such as McNair, Blackett, James Reece, Joko etc? Are you simply saying these kids would have amounted to something at Manutd? Didn't he give several chances to McNair, Blackett James Reece even at the detriment of the team and to the ire of the fans who deemed them not good enough and wanted them out? This revisionism is really something.

You said he had wanted to use Keane back then but let me ask you, was Keane proven at higher level for Van Gaal to have trusted him? He could have easily played Depay in the striker role for example, similar to how Mourinho used Hazard as his false 9 striker when he had problem with injuries at Chelsea rather than bother himself with Chelsea's academy kids. Van Gaal could have done same but preferred to trust Keane and Rashford also. How was that a lucky dip? It's really hard for some people to give Van Gaal the credit he deserves.

If it was about Van Gaal taking punts on lot of average players such as Darmain, Rojo, injury ridden Falcao, injury prone ageing Schweisteiger etc, I wouldn't argue against that but to say he was lucky with the idea of playing kids which had always been his principles in all clubs he's managed isn't right.

Also, he got the best out of the average ageing squad he had under him and won the FA cup with them as well as got fighting for the top four till the very end which we only lost out on goal difference. This was the same manager that got the best out of the ageing average Dutch national team and got them to the 3rd place final. Personally, I feel he's better at managing a national team, from which he could dip his hands into the plethora of talents and build a team with them like he did at the worldcup. Better still, he would do great at a club that has terrific talent pool such as Ajax's academy kids with whom he could build a good team. His judgements in the transfer window are a bit sketchy but he's capable of getting the best out of good players. In fact, I feel he would do wonders with the squad we have right now.
What am I revising exactly? I'm saying it was lucky dip. Because he fired players in who simply either weren't ready, or weren't good enough. Those guys should definitely not have played for the team at that point. If they hadn't, would they have amounted to anything, if brought in at a later date? Probably not. But, they weren't good enough. They shouldn't have been played. He wasn't able to identify talent which was good enough and ready. That's what I've repeatedly been saying, and there's no revisionism there.

I mean, you're basically making my exact point. It was a scattergun, lucky dip approach. Fire a guy in and hope for the best. Might as well put up a banner that says "I am clueless with regards to evaluating player talent & ability. Exactly, you're making my point again about Keane (I'm writing my response as I read through each paragraph). How did he not know that Rashford was better than Keane? He seems them every day. That's exactly lucky dip. He goes to start Keane. Keane gets injured. Rashford comes in, does well, stays in. He was a clueless manager. Couldn't evaluate that Rashford was clearly better than Keane, and ready. How is it lucky dip? It's EXACTLY lucky dip.

I never said he got lucky with the idea of playing kids. All I'm saying is that his approach was haphazard. He couldn't evaluate, so just fired loads of random ones in. One worked out. Yes, that's getting lucky. Ole is clearly more mindful, he's figuring out who is ready and bringing them in slowly.

What players did he gets the best out of at United? Not too many to be honest.
 

Carl

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I'll look back on LVGs time with much more fondness than Jose's, that's for sure.

Actually think we played really good stuff at times under van Gaal.
 

Kaglish10

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Nothing will top this Spurs game for me. All these can be excused one way or another but not this because Rashford and Young were on the same pitch but he switched their position for no reason.

It wasn't just this as well. Van Gaal was fecking up with the lineup and trying crap position changing whenever he had a full fit squad. Surprise but we only played well under him when we had injuries and he was forced to play a specific formation without testing his "ideas". Once he got his players back from injuries he started fecking up the lineup and we were back to being shite again.
But Young was actually a SS and played mostly as one at Aston villa before he moved to Manutd. What's wrong in deploying a SS in a striker role to see if he could score in the place of Rashford who was struggling? Wasn't Rooney also SS? Likewise Aguero at Atletico before making the switch to a striker role? We all don't know how Young had been used in training, considering Rooney was out injured and we only had Rashford as the only striker, apart from Martial who had already claimed the left wing role and and there was no use switching him around. Young had the experience of a striker role, albeit a SS role at Aston villa hence could have been considered as a second choice to have in the striker role and we don't even know how he had performed in that same role in training.

This is actually getting ridiculous.
What am I revising exactly? I'm saying it was lucky dip. Because he fired players in who simply either weren't ready, or weren't good enough. Those guys should definitely not have played for the team at that point. If they hadn't, would they have amounted to anything, if brought in at a later date? Probably not. But, they weren't good enough. They shouldn't have been played. He wasn't able to identify talent which was good enough and ready. That's what I've repeatedly been saying, and there's no revisionism there.

I mean, you're basically making my exact point. It was a scattergun, lucky dip approach. Fire a guy in and hope for the best. Might as well put up a banner that says "I am clueless with regards to evaluating player talent & ability. Exactly, you're making my point again about Keane (I'm writing my response as I read through each paragraph). How did he not know that Rashford was better than Keane? He seems them every day. That's exactly lucky dip. He goes to start Keane. Keane gets injured. Rashford comes in, does well, stays in. He was a clueless manager. Couldn't evaluate that Rashford was clearly better than Keane, and ready. How is it lucky dip? It's EXACTLY lucky dip.

I never said he got lucky with the idea of playing kids. All I'm saying is that his approach was haphazard. He couldn't evaluate, so just fired loads of random ones in. One worked out. Yes, that's getting lucky. Ole is clearly more mindful, he's figuring out who is ready and bringing them in slowly.

What players did he gets the best out of at United? Not too many to be honest.
His signing of young players such as Martial and Depay were also lucky too. Likewise his use of Blackett, James Reece, McNair in preseason games which continued in the EPL when he could have easily signed experienced central backs rather than bother himself with our unproven academy kids. It was all lucky dip.
 
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Keefy18

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What am I revising exactly? I'm saying it was lucky dip. Because he fired players in who simply either weren't ready, or weren't good enough. Those guys should definitely not have played for the team at that point. If they hadn't, would they have amounted to anything, if brought in at a later date? Probably not. But, they weren't good enough. They shouldn't have been played. He wasn't able to identify talent which was good enough and ready. That's what I've repeatedly been saying, and there's no revisionism there.

I mean, you're basically making my exact point. It was a scattergun, lucky dip approach. Fire a guy in and hope for the best. Might as well put up a banner that says "I am clueless with regards to evaluating player talent & ability. Exactly, you're making my point again about Keane (I'm writing my response as I read through each paragraph). How did he not know that Rashford was better than Keane? He seems them every day. That's exactly lucky dip. He goes to start Keane. Keane gets injured. Rashford comes in, does well, stays in. He was a clueless manager. Couldn't evaluate that Rashford was clearly better than Keane, and ready. How is it lucky dip? It's EXACTLY lucky dip.

I never said he got lucky with the idea of playing kids. All I'm saying is that his approach was haphazard. He couldn't evaluate, so just fired loads of random ones in. One worked out. Yes, that's getting lucky. Ole is clearly more mindful, he's figuring out who is ready and bringing them in slowly.

What players did he gets the best out of at United? Not too many to be honest.
TBF, He had extremely limited time. He arrived late at the club in the first season and then in the second season he was under immense pressure to get top 4 minimum, whilst trying to rebuild.

I'm not sure "lucky dip" is quite fair to use, he did drop kids in and tell them go make a name for yourself. Hell, how many times have you read or heard supporters say the same, give them a chance and see if they take it or not. No point judging players only at youth level, you have to drop them into the senior side at some point and say OK kid, here's your chance.

Some take it, some don't. Same way transfers work. No manager has a perfect record with either.

LVG gave us Rashford and Martial. He provided us with arguably the best back up keeper in the league in Romero. Shaw is a very good left back and also bought by LVG. He also gave us Memphis but sadly he had a bad attitude and is ripping it up across Europe now in France and in the CL and for the national side.
 

buckooo1978

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Wasn't a disaster at all, all those players were rightly sold.

RVP was getting injured regularly again and hasn't done much of anything since he left.

Rafael like wise was a sick note. He was a superb RB and there wasn't any doubt over his quality, just his ability to stay fit.

Kagawa never settled to PL football, Ferguson misused him throughout and he never stepped up in reality.

Nani, likewise went on to do nowt and hardly made us eat humble pie.

The one we ballsed up was Zaha, that's about it.
a transfer policy is a 2 way thing - you could argue about the merits of selling any player right up to De Gea but the important thing is you replace players and improve the team

do you think he improved the team with his replacements?

He certainly didn't in my view hence the disaster

also it was disastrous for the club in terms of the pathetic fees we recouped - there was also the issue of paying almost all Nani's wage for him to go to sporting whilst we relied on Januzaj, Rooney and Depay in attack
 

Roboc7

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What am I revising exactly? I'm saying it was lucky dip. Because he fired players in who simply either weren't ready, or weren't good enough. Those guys should definitely not have played for the team at that point. If they hadn't, would they have amounted to anything, if brought in at a later date? Probably not. But, they weren't good enough. They shouldn't have been played. He wasn't able to identify talent which was good enough and ready. That's what I've repeatedly been saying, and there's no revisionism there.

I mean, you're basically making my exact point. It was a scattergun, lucky dip approach. Fire a guy in and hope for the best. Might as well put up a banner that says "I am clueless with regards to evaluating player talent & ability. Exactly, you're making my point again about Keane (I'm writing my response as I read through each paragraph). How did he not know that Rashford was better than Keane? He seems them every day. That's exactly lucky dip. He goes to start Keane. Keane gets injured. Rashford comes in, does well, stays in. He was a clueless manager. Couldn't evaluate that Rashford was clearly better than Keane, and ready. How is it lucky dip? It's EXACTLY lucky dip.

I never said he got lucky with the idea of playing kids. All I'm saying is that his approach was haphazard. He couldn't evaluate, so just fired loads of random ones in. One worked out. Yes, that's getting lucky. Ole is clearly more mindful, he's figuring out who is ready and bringing them in slowly.

What players did he gets the best out of at United? Not too many to be honest.
The Keane/Rashford point is perfect example of LVG either being poorly advised or not being competent. I had no problem with him playing some of the youngsters but he was completely unaware of who was god enough and it was a total lottery.

His coaching was well past its sell by date, his peak was long gone and his ideas of possession football/ pressing sounded fine but in reality had evolved to a point where he was completely out of date.

In terms of transfers he shouldn’t have been given as much power as he was, he was completely unqualified at that point in his career and that’s why the transfers were all over the place.

He may have had good intentions and ideas but wasn’t competent enough to implement them at that point in his career.
 

el3mel

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But Young was actually a SS and played mostly as one at Aston villa before he moved to Manutd. What's wrong in deploying a SS in a striker role to see if he could score in the place of Rashford who was struggling? Wasn't Rooney also SS? Likewise Aguero at Atletico before making the switch to a striker role? We all don't know how Young had been used in training, considering Rooney was out injured and we only had Rashford as the only striker, apart from Martial who had already claimed the left wing role and and there was no use switching him around. Young had the experience of a striker role, albeit a SS role at Aston villa hence could have been considered as a second choice to havebin the striker role and we don't even know how he had performed in that same role in training.

This is actually getting ridiculous.
Are you actually talking seriously about this Young part ? This is beyond giving excuses for a manager.
 

Keefy18

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a transfer policy is a 2 way thing - you could argue about the merits of selling any player right up to De Gea but the important thing is you replace players and improve the team

do you think he improved the team with his replacements?

He certainly didn't in my view hence the disaster

also it was disastrous for the club in terms of the pathetic fees we recouped - there was also the issue of paying almost all Nani's wage for him to go to sporting whilst we relied on Januzaj, Rooney and Depay in attack
Depends on how you look at it, I mean when we signed Morgan Schneiderlin and Bastian everyone was delighted.
Likewise when we signed ADM and Falcao, our supporters were buzzing.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and its easy to say now after the fact they didn't deliver, but at that moment in time it made sense and very few of our supporters complained when the signings were announced.

If we had kept RVP & Hernandez would we of had a need to sign Martial? Would Rashford of received any playing time at all? I doubt Rashford would of been in Jose's thought's had he not debuted already under LVG, so its a very likely outcome had LVG not moved players on and focused on youth elsewhere.

Also the point on the fees received, Nani was resigned by Moyes not LVG. What he was paid like all players is at the boards discretion.
I think we done OK with transfers actually during LVG's reign, when you consider all factors like wages, signing fees and fees received.

Falcao & Bastian were experienced players worth the risk, he proved it a few years later with Monaco. PL was probably a bit much for him after his injuries though.
ADM was a big investment, but we lost sod all on him in reality.
Blind was a very good player I felt myself and Jose selling him was a bad decision. Part of that great Ajax team now raising eyebrows.

It's kinda funny, the longer Jose was in the job here the more he relied upon LVG and SAF signing's. He was slowly dropping his own players and bringing back LVG players to the fold. But folks say it was a disaster? I've my doubts.
 

bond19821982

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Not the same at all. Hart was always a pretty average keeper who got found out by Pep and subsequently the rest of the footballing world. There’s a reason he went trough 3 subpar clubs after City and isn’t even the first choice keeper at Burnley now. Good keepers just don’t drop off the face of the earth at 29.

That’s one of the reasons Pep is a good manager and LVG is a bad one. Pep can identify someone’s actual talent level.

If United would sell DDG, no way he goes to Torino. He goes to Real Madrid.
Point stands . It wasn't a comparison with Hart on the ability . Its about what he wanted to get his tactics work.
 

dirkey

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How so? DDG is shit with the ball and his distribution is very poor. He identified the issue and wanted to fix it.
Because, looking at LVG's transfer history at United, he'd probably "identify" some amaaaazing ball playing keeper who would let in every 2nd shot. It's a dumb idea as the poster said. The main job of a keeper is to keep the ball out of the net. De Gea is one of the very best in the world at that. You don't let players like that go for 2nd rate talents who are better with the ball at their feet. Such a stupid idea.