Van Gaal

Kaglish10

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Van Gaal also wanted to pay 35m for ighalo if we are going down that route.
And the same thing, if we are talking about Herrera signing, Van Gaal agreed to that, but pulled the plug on Kroos who had agreed to sign with us.
Van Gaal didn't sign Herrera. That's a fact which was confirmed by the board.

As for Kroos, there was no way Kroos would choose us over Madrid. Besides, he needs a functional mobile setup if you're to bring out the best in him because he doesn't have the work rates nor the mobility. The likes of Modric and Schweisteiger were players who have complemented him a lot for Madrid, Germany and Bayern. We don't have these players at the club. Kroos wouldn't have amounted to any success if he was here even as he has now found it difficult after Schweisteiger retired from Germany and Modric's decline at Madrid.

On Ighalo, there were rumours eventhough I haven't seen a reputable sources claiming we actually bid 35mil for him which was rejected (only express reported it) however I won't rule this out because we were so desperate for a striker in January considering Rooney's poor form after he returned from his injury lay off but I find it ridiculous that Watford would reject 35mil bid from us and later sold to China for 20mil. It was either Van Gaal had thought he could come at a cheap price like other players he took punts on and help us (he had scored 12 goals in 20 starts then) but he probably had no option than to pull out because Watford wanted more. There was nothing wrong with that. Any coach would have done that if he had injuries/an off form striker and that shouldn't be used as a stick to beat him. Chelsea did the same with Higuain.
 

Sylar

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Got it, so youre happy to go with rumours and heresay as long as it fits the narrative (or as long as it makes sense to you)

So question @Kaglish10
Was LVG a success a success at United?
 

Roboc7

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LVG like Jose and Moyes was a terrible appointment for the club, he did more damage than good and never should have got the job.

All this revisionism is nonsense, the reason we are so bad is because those three managers were disasters coupled with the incompetence behind the scenes.
 

Kaglish10

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Got it, so youre happy to go with rumours and heresay as long as it fits the narrative (or as long as it makes sense to you)

So question @Kaglish10
Was LVG a success a success at United?
He wasn't a success in some areas such as his transfers (he had banked either on many injury prone players such as schweisteiger, Falcao or some average players he took in as punts such as Darmain, Rojo etc). So I won't say he was a success.

But as regard to his youth policy, he was a success as well as his principles on getting the players to be more comfortable on the ball in a possession based setup eventhough he had no quality players to totally implement it. He could only bank on the sluggish ageing players in the midfield.
 

Sylar

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He wasn't a success in some areas such as his transfers (he had banked either on many injury prone players such as schweisteiger, Falcao or some average players he took in as punts such as Darmain, Rojo etc). So I won't say he was a success.

But as regard to his youth policy, he was a success as well as his principles on getting the players to be more comfortable on the ball in a possession based setup eventhough he had no quality players to totally implement it. He could only bank on the sluggish ageing players in the midfield.
Ok, ill ask again and make it simple binary question:
Overall, do you deem his time at United a success?
 

Aloysius's Back 3

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Ok, ill ask again and make it simple binary question:
Overall, do you deem his time at United a success?
Not success but I saw it as progress.

We had players like Varela, TFM, Borthwick Jackson, Rashford, Lingard, Martial, Memphis all trying to perform for us in that one season alone - I'd have liked to see that continue - the thing with that season though was - the damage was done before the improvement started occurring.
 

Keefy18

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This would my last response to you on this. But let me put it to you that no amount of revisionism will change the fact that the Dutch team weren't negative in 2014 world cup. They looked great against Spain, Chile, Costa Rica where Keylor Navas had a blinder and in the third place final against Brazil. The only boring match they had was the match against Argentina where Mascherano had a great game and that points to Argentina's negative approach in the game. Nothing can change this fact, not even your hatred.

That said, if you had watched Bayern under Van Gaal, you would have realised they were an attacking side which tend to leave no caution against opposition. In fact, it was all about scoring plenty of goals to overcompensate for their leaking defence and their soft midfield. No wonder the first thing Bayern's board did after Van Gaal left, was to revamp the whole defence and broke the bank for Javi Martinez to give them the needed grit in the midfield. The likes of Van buyten, Dimechelis, Tymoshchuks, Pranjic, Antitop, 40yrs Van bommel were players who played in defence for Van Gaal while he was at Bayern hence it wasn't a rocket science to see them leak many goals which was Bayern's achilles but nothing was wrong with their attack. They often scored 4, 5, 6 goals most of the times. Hence, I would say there was never a time Van Gaal was defensive, even while he was here. The only time he deployed a defensive set-up was our europa match against Liverpool and that was the only time I could recall. He had probably realised that he wasn't good with defensive approach after that match.

The act of likening our boring sluggish midfield display (which was due to the ageing, average, sluggish Mata, Rooney, Carrick, Fellaini in midfield) to a defensive approach should stop already because it's becoming ridiculous. Anyone who took a glance at the players we had in the midfield would already expect such sluggishness. That ain't a rocket science hence I wonder why some people keep on thinking of the quality im the team when there was none. It was even strange to have won the FA cup and only lost out on top four by just goal difference, with such a pathetic squad.

Obviously, it was Van Gaal's fault for failing to bring in quality players, especially a creative pacy midfielder which would have given us the needed fast tempo but let's not forget the fact that most of his signings were punts taken in and that the board signed Herrera whom they had expected Van Gaal to keep playing regardless of how poor Herrera has looked in the midfield. Hence, I don't blame Van Gaal for banking on an injury prone Schweisteiger who came in at a little price, especially when the board failed to back him for a big signing. Besides, the midfield combo of schweisteiger and Schneiderlin were working quite fine and got us to the top of the league table until Schweisteiger became crocked and we had to resort to the board's signing, Herrera who couldn't fit into schweisteiger's boot.

Van Gaal also wanted Mane but the board didn't back him as well. Van Gaal's only big money moves were Martial and Di Maria whom we already recouped most of fees. Shaw and Herrera were signed by the boards.
Absolutely brilliant post! Nail on the head!

Especially the bold part! It's incredible the amount of times posters on here and in general within our fan base will continually post about how utterly abysmal our squad is time and time again, but then expected miracles of LVG.

The second bold part he did try to address in fairness to him, 3 pacy wide players were signed under his tenure in ADM, Memphis and Martial. The first 2 had rotten attitudes.

Reality is this, of all the post Ferguson managers thus far only LVG made the slightest attempt at a rebuild. Jose caused stagnation and rot, our players fitness levels and technical ability plummeted and confidence was rock bottom.

LVG made a total of 48 transfers (purchases / sales), Jose on the other hand just the 29 and that with a transfer window more.

LVG debuted no less than 15 YTS players, Jose just the 6, 3 of them in the one game! Jose had zero interest in youth players and building a team for long term success.

All the work done by LVG at a youth level, completely undone over 2 years. Our team is now in a worst state for having Jose here, if we had kept LVG for the full 3 seasons and stayed the course with focusing on youth and hiring a more suitable younger manager after those 3 years who would continue the work LVG had done, we would arguably be in far better shape than the current mess we are in.
 

Aloysius's Back 3

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What happened to all those foundations he was supposed to lay.?
they've sunk
Went away the moment we went for Jose which is the complete opposite side.

Nearly every fan were so big headed thinking Jose was the key to success - what happened to Jose's amazing success?

LVG would have been a good manager to have for a club with a director who knew what he was doing. Going from LVG to Ole or Giggs would have been better than going from LVG to Jose.
 

Keefy18

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It's this simple folks and there is no other way around it..... When LVG was sacked we finished 5th (tied with 4th).

When Jose was sacked we were 11 points off 4th!

LVG left us in a far healthier state than Jose did that much is an absolute fact.
 

dirkey

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It's this simple folks and there is no other way around it..... When LVG was sacked we finished 5th (tied with 4th).

When Jose was sacked we were 11 points off 4th!

LVG left us in a far healthier state than Jose did that much is an absolute fact.
Great. So, LVG left us in the shit. But it was slightly less smelly shit than Jose left us in. Congrats LVG.
 

Gehrman

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We were so boring under Van Gaal. Its not like when won a alot anyway apart from an FA cup. He had his qualities but he spent big money without providing the quality
 

bond19821982

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We were so boring under Van Gaal. Its not like when won a alot anyway apart from an FA cup. He had his qualities but he spent big money without providing the quality
And are we entertaining since then? I didn't find any big difference between LVG ,Jose and Moyes.
Westham,Watford, Wolves,Barca (last 4 games) wasn't any better under Ole either.
 

SportingCP96

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The way and style in which he was trying to implement takes time and requires certain players. Nonetheless I prefer the classics United way of attacking. It is there true identity.
 

Kostur

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It's this simple folks and there is no other way around it..... When LVG was sacked we finished 5th (tied with 4th).

When Jose was sacked we were 11 points off 4th!

LVG left us in a far healthier state than Jose did that much is an absolute fact.
No, it actually isn't as you call it a 'fact'.
 

Gehrman

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And are we entertaining since then? I didn't find any big difference between LVG ,Jose and Moyes.
Westham,Watford, Wolves,Barca (last 4 games) wasn't any better under Ole either.
No Mounrinho was no better. Ole was better but has tailored off in the last few games. I imagine Ole will have us playing attacking football with a preseason and a transfer window.
 

Roboc7

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Absolutely brilliant post! Nail on the head!

Especially the bold part! It's incredible the amount of times posters on here and in general within our fan base will continually post about how utterly abysmal our squad is time and time again, but then expected miracles of LVG.

The second bold part he did try to address in fairness to him, 3 pacy wide players were signed under his tenure in ADM, Memphis and Martial. The first 2 had rotten attitudes.

Reality is this, of all the post Ferguson managers thus far only LVG made the slightest attempt at a rebuild. Jose caused stagnation and rot, our players fitness levels and technical ability plummeted and confidence was rock bottom.

LVG made a total of 48 transfers (purchases / sales), Jose on the other hand just the 29 and that with a transfer window more.

LVG debuted no less than 15 YTS players, Jose just the 6, 3 of them in the one game! Jose had zero interest in youth players and building a team for long term success.

All the work done by LVG at a youth level, completely undone over 2 years. Our team is now in a worst state for having Jose here, if we had kept LVG for the full 3 seasons and stayed the course with focusing on youth and hiring a more suitable younger manager after those 3 years who would continue the work LVG had done, we would arguably be in far better shape than the current mess we are in.
There isn’t any young manager that would have wanted to carry on what LVG was doing. He may have had some good theories but how he put them into practice and his terrible transfers which didn’t even match his own philosophy meant whoever came in was starting all over again.

A third season would have been terrible, Rooney as our playmaker and a manager everyone knew was on the way out, the competition was only going to get stronger and we were getting worse.

The board should have taken his advice and looked to restructure and appoint manager to rebuild but he left behind a mess similar to what he inherited.
 

el3mel

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It's this simple folks and there is no other way around it..... When LVG was sacked we finished 5th (tied with 4th).

When Jose was sacked we were 11 points off 4th!

LVG left us in a far healthier state than Jose did that much is an absolute fact.
LVG was supposed to take care of the rebuild task after Moyes was sacked, 2 seasons of his charge and he left us with a squad that has no midfield, no strikers, no wingers and its best players are 2 inconsistent youngsters. He wasn't hired for long term. He was hired for 2-3 years to do the rebuild that was supposed to happen post SAF and failed miserably in it. He got a squad in terrible state and left in terrible state. Basically 2 years wasted.
 

Untd55

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It's this simple folks and there is no other way around it..... When LVG was sacked we finished 5th (tied with 4th).

When Jose was sacked we were 11 points off 4th!

LVG left us in a far healthier state than Jose did that much is an absolute fact.
How did Van Gaal leave us in a better state? The league was far weaker then than it is now and we finished fifth. I remember Tottenham absolutely battered us near the end of that season. No player in the team reached 10 goals for the season- we managed a whopping 49 goals all season.

We were outscored by 9 teams. How is that in a better position? We lost 10 games and drew 9. Seriously, that season was diabolical and there was very little in the way of positives to take out of it. Mourinho started off with a crap squad, there is no arguing against it.
 

Keefy18

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Great. So, LVG left us in the shit. But it was slightly less smelly shit than Jose left us in. Congrats LVG.
We were closer to a league title with LVG than Jose ever was. The furthest LVG was from the champions was 17pts, Jose was 19pts off City when they won it and still the same when he was sacked.

At least he made a genuine attempt at rebuilding the side which is a lot more than Jose done.

Also, We won an FA Cup on the day of his sacking, what exactly will we we be getting from this season? Feck all and that is on Jose!

No, it actually isn't as you call it a 'fact'.
Well actually it is, feel free too look at the numbers.

There isn’t any young manager that would have wanted to carry on what LVG was doing. He may have had some good theories but how he put them into practice and his terrible transfers which didn’t even match his own philosophy meant whoever came in was starting all over again.

A third season would have been terrible, Rooney as our playmaker and a manager everyone knew was on the way out, the competition was only going to get stronger and we were getting worse.

The board should have taken his advice and looked to restructure and appoint manager to rebuild but he left behind a mess similar to what he inherited.
I don't mean the young manager would of played exactly like LVG. You are taking my point too literal.

LVG was clearly introducing youth to the side and developing them, the manager taking over from him would of continued on working with youth and tweaked our playing style.

He was stuck with Rooney, remember Moyes gifted him a whopper new 5 year deal with massive pay rise. He wasn't that far off the goal scoring record either so he had to basically put up with him in reality.

Jose had a far easier job in managing him as he was closer to the record, his contract winding down and called his bluff with his ability to play and not being up to scratch. I don't for a second truly believer LVG would of kept him if he didn't need to.

LVG was supposed to take care of the rebuild task after Moyes was sacked, 2 seasons of his charge and he left us with a squad that has no midfield, no strikers, no wingers and its best players are 2 inconsistent youngsters. He wasn't hired for long term. He was hired for 2-3 years to do the rebuild that was supposed to happen post SAF and failed miserably in it. He got a squad in terrible state and left in terrible state. Basically 2 years wasted.
LVG is the only manager post Ferguson to even attempt at rebuild, he made over 20 more transfers than Jose done in lesser time. He wasn't hired for 2-3 years he was hired for 3 years and Woody panicked seeing Pep going to City and undone all his work by appointing a manager who was exactly the opposite to him.

Is it any wonder we are in worse shape now? We won an FA Cup on the day of his sacking, what exactly will we we be getting from this season?

How did Van Gaal leave us in a better state? The league was far weaker then than it is now and we finished fifth. I remember Tottenham absolutely battered us near the end of that season. No player in the team reached 10 goals for the season- we managed a whopping 49 goals all season.

We were outscored by 9 teams. How is that in a better position? We lost 10 games and drew 9. Seriously, that season was diabolical and there was very little in the way of positives to take out of it. Mourinho started off with a crap squad, there is no arguing against it.
It's a myth it was weaker, Leicester won the league on merit and won it with a point more than we managed with our league win in 2011.

We finished level on pts with 4th, only missing out on it via goal difference. He was sacked on the day we won an FA cup ffs. Again for the 3rd time in a post, we'll be getting sweet fa from this season because of Jose.

The best Jose could manage with us was finishing 19pts from the eventual champions, in his first season we were dreadful and finished 24 feckin points from Chelsea! LVG was closer whatever way you want to spin it, finishing 1st is the goal.

Jose routinely lost to Spurs too mate, whats your point? LVG's record against the top 6 was actually superb, we beat all our closest rivals consistently.

The bolded part is utter, utter bollicks. The longer Jose remained at the club the more his own signings failed and he omitted them and relied more and more heavily on LVG & Fergie signings.

Pogba the "virus", Mikha sold, Bailly phased out, Sanchez incapable of delivering, Lindelof a sub at best and even started to talk out against Lukaku at the end of last season and start of this one... The only player that was playing regular was Matic! He was his only go to signing by the end.

He relied on Romero in cups, Shaw and Martial whom he publicly slated on a weekly basis still. Yet Martial's goals and assists were keeping him in a job by the skin of his teeth earlier this season. Persisted with a CB pairing of Smalling & Jones, Told the world that Young would play every week cause he was that good.
 
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Schmeichel's Cartwheel

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He was shit, but we aren't much better now than we were under him. The last 6 years have been a complete and utter disaster. The problem lies behind the scenes.
 

el3mel

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LVG is the only manager post Ferguson to even attempt at rebuild, he made over 20 more transfers than Jose done in lesser time. He wasn't hired for 2-3 years he was hired for 3 years and Woody panicked seeing Pep going to City and undone all his work by appointing a manager who was exactly the opposite to him.

Is it any wonder we are in worse shape now? We won an FA Cup on the day of his sacking, what exactly will we we be getting from this season?
We hired him after Moyes failed with a squad near its end and the objective was to make a rebuild in his contract time, replacing the deadwood with better players and making a base for the upcoming manager after him. He sold the deadwood but failed miserably in replacing them and left the squad as terrible as he got it, with underwhelming defenders, absolutely no midfield at all, no attack or wingers, with the team best players are inconsistent youngsters. He failed miserably in his target in rebuilding the squad and had 2 disastrous transfer market while playing awful football weekly. Looking at the squad he got from Moyes and that he left, it was 2 years wasted. All positions were as terrible as he got them.

There was no reason for him to be kept for another year because his project already failed. Another terrible market like the previous 2 wouldn't have solved this mess.

And his 2 years ended up with whoever was going to be appointed to start with a terrible squad that wasted 2 years without any kind of progress and would have to start a rebuild all over. That wasn't the plan for the manager post LVG to make a rebuild. It was LVG's target to do it
 

Keefy18

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Which numbers? You mean number of points after season end when LVG was sacked against Mourinho's December sacking? Want to compare apples to trains while we're at it?
Basically yes, if the goal isn't to win leagues then what is? 2nd - 4th on matter now cause of Champions league but there's no trophy for that.

In his first season here LVG was 17pts from PL winners Chelsea, in his second season 15pts from Leicester.

Funny cause when Jose was winning the Europa he came out with his famous "United chase trophies not top 4", fast forward a year and when he finished 2nd it was a different story with "2nd place is my greatest achievement".
 

Keefy18

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We hired him after Moyes failed with a squad near its end and the objective was to make a rebuild in his contract time, replacing the deadwood with better players and making a base for the upcoming manager after him. He sold the deadwood but failed miserably in replacing them and left the squad as terrible as he got it, with underwhelming defenders, absolutely no midfield at all, no attack or wingers, with the team best players are inconsistent youngsters. He failed miserably in his target in rebuilding the squad and had 2 disastrous transfer market while playing awful football weekly. Looking at the squad he got from Moyes and that he left, it was 2 years wasted. All positions were as terrible as he got them.

There was no reason for him to be kept for another year because his project already failed. Another terrible market like the previous 2 wouldn't have solved this mess.

And his 2 years ended up with whoever was going to appointed to start with a terrible squad that wasted 2 years without any kind of progress and would have to start a rebuild all over. That wasn't the plan for the manager post LVG to make a rebuild. It was LVG's target to do it
Yes and what was his contract time? Three years, he got two.

LVG took over a team that had finished 7th mate, Jose took over a side that won a trophy and finished 5th, tied with 4th!

Jose was sacked with us in 6th and 11 points off 4th.

It's not rocket science...that's it in a nutshell.

We have gone backwards under Jose.

Many of the players LVG sold were sold on merit, they were ageing, injury prone or simply not good enough. In some cases it was all 3 or mix of those reasons.

  • Rio / Vidic - Ageing and injury prone. Vidic went on to have an absolute fecking nightmare with Inter and routinely scored injury goals and racked up more injuries.
  • Evra - Ageing and needed to be replaced.
  • Kagawa - Big fan but never delivered for us consistently.
  • Welbeck - Average, injury prone and we actually got a decent price for him
  • M. Keane - Average.
  • Fletcher - Chrons disease and had barely kicked a ball at that point for years
  • Anderson - Fat, out of shape and a joke.
  • Cleverly - Awful player
  • Nani - Inconsistent and a huge mistake by the board / Moyes giving him a new deal
  • RVP - Ageing and injury prone, miracle Fergie managed to get a full season from him
  • Evans - Decent performer but by no means a huge miss.
  • Hernandez - Had been poor for quite some time for us, injuries were becoming common place as well
  • Rafael - Perma-crocked.
When its put into context with hindsight in mind bar a few months in Germany for Hernandez no one performed consistently anywhere, Even Hernandez then went 6 months of the next season without a single goal.

In return he gave us Martial, Rashford, Shaw, Herrera, Romero who are all still at the club.

Our club has needed a massive, massive overhaul for years and the only manager to even try this was LVG.

No manager gets all transfers right, none. Folks seem to think a manager should have a perfect slate with transfers. I'd argue his rebuild of squad has been more beneficial than Jose's.

No one can tell me we are currently better off than on the day LVG was sacked in May 2016.
 

el3mel

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Yes and what was his contract time? Three years, he got two.

Many of the players LVG sold were sold on merit, they were ageing, injury prone or simply not good enough. In some cases it was all 3 or mix of those reasons.

  • Rio / Vidic - Ageing and injury prone. Vidic went on to have an absolute fecking nightmare with Inter and routinely scored injury goals and racked up more injuries.
  • Evra - Ageing and needed to be replaced.
  • Kagawa - Big fan but never delivered for us consistently.
  • Welbeck - Average, injury prone and we actually got a decent price for him
  • M. Keane - Average.
  • Fletcher - Chrons disease and had barely kicked a ball at that point for years
  • Anderson - Fat, out of shape and a joke.
  • Cleverly - Awful player
  • Nani - Inconsistent and a huge mistake by the board / Moyes giving him a new deal
  • RVP - Ageing and injury prone, miracle Fergie managed to get a full season from him
  • Evans - Decent performer but by no means a huge miss.
  • Hernandez - Had been poor for quite some time for us, injuries were becoming common place as well
  • Rafael - Perma-crocked.
When its put into context with hindsight in mind bar a few months in Germany for Hernandez no one performed consistently anywhere, Even Hernandez then went 6 months of the next season without a single goal.

In return he gave us Martial, Rashford, Shaw, Herrera, Romero who are all still at the club.

Our club has needed a massive, massive overhaul for years and the only manager to even try this was LVG.

No manager gets all transfers right, none. Folks seem to think a manager should have a perfect slate with transfers. I'd argue his rebuild of squad has been more beneficial than Jose's.

No one can tell me we are currently better off than on the day LVG was sacked in May 2016.
He did well on the selling part and I don't disagree with any players he sold.

However his recruitment was absolutely terrible and failed in replacing the deadwood, more like he replaced them with new deadwood that will need to be shipped.

By the end of his reign, as I said, our 2 best players were 2 inconsistent youngsters (Rash and Martial). Our midfield was non existent (Morgan, Bastian and fecking Rooney shoehorned into it). Our defenders were underwhelming, our attack had no wingers at all and no top strikers to score goals consistently.

That was our Fa cup final team :

De Gea
Valencia - Smalling - Blind - Rojo
Carrick
Rooney - Fellaini
Mata - Rashford - Martial​

Fast forward 3 years from his reign how many of these players any relevant now ? De Gea, Rashford and Martial.

Was that team any different from the team Moyes left in terms of strength ? His recruitment in midfield and offense was absolutely terrible bar Martial.

The team he left needed an entire new midfield, 2 top class forwards to cover for those youngsters, 1 or 2 defenders and at least one fullback. How is that a good rebuild ?

Considering the midfield issue was present prior to his appointment and his signing made the matter even worse (Morgan and Bastian).
 

Aloysius's Back 3

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Yes and what was his contract time? Three years, he got two.

LVG took over a team that had finished 7th mate, Jose took over a side that won a trophy and finished 5th, tied with 4th!

Jose was sacked with us in 6th and 11 points off 4th.

It's not rocket science...that's it in a nutshell.

We have gone backwards under Jose.

Many of the players LVG sold were sold on merit, they were ageing, injury prone or simply not good enough. In some cases it was all 3 or mix of those reasons.

  • Rio / Vidic - Ageing and injury prone. Vidic went on to have an absolute fecking nightmare with Inter and routinely scored injury goals and racked up more injuries.
  • Evra - Ageing and needed to be replaced.
  • Kagawa - Big fan but never delivered for us consistently.
  • Welbeck - Average, injury prone and we actually got a decent price for him
  • M. Keane - Average.
  • Fletcher - Chrons disease and had barely kicked a ball at that point for years
  • Anderson - Fat, out of shape and a joke.
  • Cleverly - Awful player
  • Nani - Inconsistent and a huge mistake by the board / Moyes giving him a new deal
  • RVP - Ageing and injury prone, miracle Fergie managed to get a full season from him
  • Evans - Decent performer but by no means a huge miss.
  • Hernandez - Had been poor for quite some time for us, injuries were becoming common place as well
  • Rafael - Perma-crocked.
When its put into context with hindsight in mind bar a few months in Germany for Hernandez no one performed consistently anywhere, Even Hernandez then went 6 months of the next season without a single goal.

In return he gave us Martial, Rashford, Shaw, Herrera, Romero who are all still at the club.

Our club has needed a massive, massive overhaul for years and the only manager to even try this was LVG.

No manager gets all transfers right, none. Folks seem to think a manager should have a perfect slate with transfers. I'd argue his rebuild of squad has been more beneficial than Jose's.

No one can tell me we are currently better off than on the day LVG was sacked in May 2016.
These guys only remember the poor part of the second season. I'm not going to pretend like it was an absolute spectacle but the later half of the season had -

Got Smalling & Blind working well together, had a LB who looked like he could cross atleast as back up, unearthed Rashford as a central striker & not a winger, had martial on a decent season, had been surprised with Lingards ability to be a decent player for us, had given chances to Varela, TFM and regan Poole.

People can say what they want about LVG but there is absolutely not a chance that he wouldn't have unearthered another young player whilst giving chances almost in a rotator basis.

Don't even get me started on the fact that he unearthered Rashford almost as a coincidence of his methods in the last half of the season & there is absolutely no way that he wouldn't have started the next season with 2 strikers with memphis as back up as well.

Instead we loaned out all the young players of that season, bought Zlatan & Lukaku to turn our forwards in to wingers whilst turning the best CB partnership post SAF to an absolute shambles of nobody who can pass the ball or atleast remain calm under pressure.

We went to nearly every game with the ball at our feet & in relative control. Whilst i will never say LVG was good in the transfer window because he has never been even at Barcelona or Bayern - all we needed was a manager after him to continue with the same type of football which had the ball at our feet to buy some better more technically able players - not the likes of fellaini etc.
 

dirkey

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We were closer to a league title with LVG than Jose ever was. The furthest LVG was from the champions was 17pts, Jose was 19pts off City when they won it and still the same when he was sacked.

At least he made a genuine attempt at rebuilding the side which is a lot more than Jose done.

Also, We won an FA Cup on the day of his sacking, what exactly will we we be getting from this season? Feck all and that is on Jose!
Once again, I state, we were slightly worse off under Jose (if you're going by exact points. Let's disregard the fact Louis got us nowhere near a title challenge during the worst premier league season in years). I really don't care to argue who was slightly better, or slightly worse. They were both a stain on the history on the club, and it's absolutely fantastic that both are gone.

He won the FA Cup. Big deal. Which manager won more trophies, out of interest, at the club? Just because he won something in his last season makes him better? Oh man, why am I arguing such an utterly pointless club.

As for him making an attempt to rebuild the side. Jesus wept. They both made attempts. Just because you prefer what Louis does, for some bizarre reason, doesn't mean Jose didn't make an attempt to rebuild also. They just both failed miserably at their own attempts to rebuild the side.
 

dirkey

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Well actually it is, feel free too look at the numbers.
Dammit. I am being sucked back in. A pointless argument, but my OCD won't let this go.

Let's look at the numbers.
Louis, 2 full seasons in the league: 111 goals for, 72 against, 136 points.
Jose, 2 full seasons in league: 122 goals for, 57 against, 150 points.

More points. More goals. Better defence. Better average league position. More trophies.

So yes. If you look at the numbers, Louis was worse.
 

shamans

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Absolutely brilliant post! Nail on the head!

Especially the bold part! It's incredible the amount of times posters on here and in general within our fan base will continually post about how utterly abysmal our squad is time and time again, but then expected miracles of LVG.

The second bold part he did try to address in fairness to him, 3 pacy wide players were signed under his tenure in ADM, Memphis and Martial. The first 2 had rotten attitudes.

Reality is this, of all the post Ferguson managers thus far only LVG made the slightest attempt at a rebuild. Jose caused stagnation and rot, our players fitness levels and technical ability plummeted and confidence was rock bottom.

LVG made a total of 48 transfers (purchases / sales), Jose on the other hand just the 29 and that with a transfer window more.

LVG debuted no less than 15 YTS players, Jose just the 6, 3 of them in the one game! Jose had zero interest in youth players and building a team for long term success.

All the work done by LVG at a youth level, completely undone over 2 years. Our team is now in a worst state for having Jose here, if we had kept LVG for the full 3 seasons and stayed the course with focusing on youth and hiring a more suitable younger manager after those 3 years who would continue the work LVG had done, we would arguably be in far better shape than the current mess we are in.

How much money did Van Gaal spend? Who told him to waste money on the players he did? Who told him to buy all that average dross that we had to end up selling at a loss?

LVG was the worst manager out of all 3. He sucked the living soul out of Man United. We lost our identity. Yes there were positives -- he valued youth and I will credit him for that but the man is too limited of a manager and got his transfers wrong.
 

Keefy18

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He did well on the selling part and I don't disagree with any players he sold.

However his recruitment was absolutely terrible and failed in replacing the deadwood, more like he replaced them with new deadwood that will need to be shipped.

By the end of his reign, as I said, our 2 best players were 2 inconsistent youngsters (Rash and Martial). Our midfield was non existent (Morgan, Bastian and fecking Rooney shoehorned into it). Our defenders were underwhelming, our attack had no wingers at all and no top strikers to score goals consistently.

That was our Fa cup final team :

De Gea
Valencia - Smalling - Blind - Rojo
Carrick
Rooney - Fellaini
Mata - Rashford - Martial​

Fast forward 3 years from his reign how many of these players any relevant now ? De Gea, Rashford and Martial.

Was that team any different from the team Moyes left in terms of strength ? His recruitment in midfield and offense was absolutely terrible bar Martial.

The team he left needed an entire new midfield, 2 top class forwards to cover for those youngsters, 1 or 2 defenders and at least one fullback. How is that a good rebuild ?

Considering the midfield issue was present prior to his appointment and his signing made the matter even worse (Morgan and Bastian).
As @Aloysius's Back 3 stated already his midfield was dreadful and he couldn't possibly address all issues immediately within 2 seasons.

No manager could not even Ferguson. Ferguson often took at least 3-4 years to rebuild sides each time, sometimes longer. It took Ferguson 4 seasons to win a cup, 6 to win the league. When he rebuilt the team from 93-94 we didn't have another truly great side until 1999 with the treble 5 years later.
In the early 2000's he had a woeful run again and didn't have another truly great side until his CL winning side of 08, that was another 4 year turn around. From 2008-13 Ferguson basically let the side rot, Moyes did nowt to address that and LVG came in and started to rebuild for a new generation.

On a side note, Bastian & Falcao were both were the punt. Dirt cheap, heaps of experience and folks were delighted at the time. Quite a few clubs around Europe are making use of the 2 year loan type transfer, Juve being the masters of it!

Anyway to address that Cup Final Team:

Defence
Smalling and Blind were very good at CB! Need I mention that Blind is now in a CL Semi Final and having a cracking season? Rojo was only playing due to Shaw's broken leg remember? Prior to that leg break he was absolutely superb early in that season. Rojo wasn't made for LB, but he done well at CB. If not for his injuries he would probably be a regular in our back line, It's a pity but he should definitely be sold.
Valencia was still performing to a very high level at this point, but Varela was being introduced to the side at this point.

Jose shipped out Blind & Verala, fell out with Shaw.

Midfield
Rooney would of been replaced or phased out similarly to how Jose done it I'm sure. Carrick retired that season, it was announced whilst LVG was still in charge.

Jose gave us Pogba, Matic and still relied consistently on Fellaini. Which is fair enough, no complaints there. We'll never know how LVG would of dealt with the MF issue.

Attack
The front 3 is actually are 3 top scoring players post Ferguson still, believe it or not. Lukaku is 4th.

Jose phased out Martial, Pushed Rashford from CF to RW and he went on nearly a 30 game run without a goal under Jose then. Mata became bit part and a sub. He brought in Lukaku & Zlatan.

Martial is still scoring more consistently than Lukaku. No complaints about Zlatan but he was a quick fix and it hurt Rashford / Martial developing in reality but folks at the time were giving it loads about how they'd learn from them, did they feck!

Our youth side was starting to decline as well prior to LVG showing up and more recently we are starting to see an improvement again due to his work over his 2 years. Chong, Gomes, Garner, TFM & Tuanzebe all signed or started to make improvements during LVG's tenure.

At a guess I'd like to think if LVG was given a 3rd year our team would of continued to develop and improve.

DDG
Valencia / Varela Smalling Blind Shaw
Herrera / Carrick Replaced (no idea with who)
New Signing / & New Signing / Rooney
Memphis Rashford Martial

Introduced Chong, TFM & Tuanzebe more consistently. Transfers are very difficult to say who he would of signed as it was 3 years ago and his focus was never on superstars more so youth with a hunger to prove themselves.

Kinda funny, that's exactly what Ole is saying he wants now in new signings and hell I'm bored of reading supporters saying it too now and saying Ole will fix us. LVG was saying the same thing 3 years ago!
 
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Keefy18

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Once again, I state, we were slightly worse off under Jose (if you're going by exact points. Let's disregard the fact Louis got us nowhere near a title challenge during the worst premier league season in years). I really don't care to argue who was slightly better, or slightly worse. They were both a stain on the history on the club, and it's absolutely fantastic that both are gone.

He won the FA Cup. Big deal. Which manager won more trophies, out of interest, at the club? Just because he won something in his last season makes him better? Oh man, why am I arguing such an utterly pointless club.

As for him making an attempt to rebuild the side. Jesus wept. They both made attempts. Just because you prefer what Louis does, for some bizarre reason, doesn't mean Jose didn't make an attempt to rebuild also. They just both failed miserably at their own attempts to rebuild the side.
Cups aren't the barometer, the league is the bread and butter and Jose performed miserably in the league. There is a strong element of luck in winning cups, hence the term.. the luck of the draw. Often teams like United play teams in much lower leagues.

The difference in the two cup wise is a feckin league cup :lol: Which Jose apologized to Southampton for due to a woeful ref on the day and robbed them of.

Jose did not make any attempt at rebuilding feck that. He hung onto all our periphery players and focused on the short term, not long term. He was in favor of selling Martial for stop gaps like Willian / Perisic. Rashford was the hottest prospect in Europe, shunted him RW in favor of Zlatan and then Lukaku.

All the work was undone by LVG, Jose made his choices and we are worse off for it.
 

Keefy18

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How much money did Van Gaal spend? Who told him to waste money on the players he did? Who told him to buy all that average dross that we had to end up selling at a loss?

LVG was the worst manager out of all 3. He sucked the living soul out of Man United. We lost our identity. Yes there were positives -- he valued youth and I will credit him for that but the man is too limited of a manager and got his transfers wrong.
Enough, but not as much as Jose and we are worse for it.

All that average dross from LVG and Fergies last remnants were used more and more by Jose whilst Jose phased out his own signings.

Sucked the life out of the club by winning an FA Cup and finished level on points with 4th. Whilst Jose left us 11points off 4th? Give your head a wobble!

The football was dreadful alright but reality is he never dragged us as low as Jose done this season at the point of our utter, utter humiliation by Liverpool!
 

shamans

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Enough, but not as much as Jose and we are worse for it.

All that average dross from LVG and Fergies last remnants were used more and more by Jose whilst Jose phased out his own signings.

Sucked the life out of the club by winning an FA Cup and finished level on points with 4th. Whilst Jose left us 11points off 4th? Give your head a wobble!

The football was dreadful alright but reality is he never dragged us as low as Jose done this season at the point of our utter, utter humiliation by Liverpool!
Is that some achievement?

Yes Jose was worse in terms of football but at least he wasn't trying to talk about some philosophy deceiving people the way LVG did. Jose was also a failure in transfers but we did get some quality: Pogba, Dalot and Lindelof.

My only point is you can't say LVG didn't have the players. No one forced him to buy Di Maria, Falcao, Blind, Depay, Schneiderlin and what not.
 

Roboc7

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We were closer to a league title with LVG than Jose ever was. The furthest LVG was from the champions was 17pts, Jose was 19pts off City when they won it and still the same when he was sacked.

At least he made a genuine attempt at rebuilding the side which is a lot more than Jose done.

Also, We won an FA Cup on the day of his sacking, what exactly will we we be getting from this season? Feck all and that is on Jose!



Well actually it is, feel free too look at the numbers.



I don't mean the young manager would of played exactly like LVG. You are taking my point too literal.

LVG was clearly introducing youth to the side and developing them, the manager taking over from him would of continued on working with youth and tweaked our playing style.

He was stuck with Rooney, remember Moyes gifted him a whopper new 5 year deal with massive pay rise. He wasn't that far off the goal scoring record either so he had to basically put up with him in reality.

Jose had a far easier job in managing him as he was closer to the record, his contract winding down and called his bluff with his ability to play and not being up to scratch. I don't for a second truly believer LVG would of kept him if he didn't need to.



LVG is the only manager post Ferguson to even attempt at rebuild, he made over 20 more transfers than Jose done in lesser time. He wasn't hired for 2-3 years he was hired for 3 years and Woody panicked seeing Pep going to City and undone all his work by appointing a manager who was exactly the opposite to him.

Is it any wonder we are in worse shape now? We won an FA Cup on the day of his sacking, what exactly will we we be getting from this season?



It's a myth it was weaker, Leicester won the league on merit and won it with a point more than we managed with our league win in 2011.

We finished level on pts with 4th, only missing out on it via goal difference. He was sacked on the day we won an FA cup ffs. Again for the 3rd time in a post, we'll be getting sweet fa from this season because of Jose.

The best Jose could manage with us was finishing 19pts from the eventual champions, in his first season we were dreadful and finished 24 feckin points from Chelsea! LVG was closer whatever way you want to spin it, finishing 1st is the goal.

Jose routinely lost to Spurs too mate, whats your point? LVG's record against the top 6 was actually superb, we beat all our closest rivals consistently.

The bolded part is utter, utter bollicks. The longer Jose remained at the club the more his own signings failed and he omitted them and relied more and more heavily on LVG & Fergie signings.

Pogba the "virus", Mikha sold, Bailly phased out, Sanchez incapable of delivering, Lindelof a sub at best and even started to talk out against Lukaku at the end of last season and start of this one... The only player that was playing regular was Matic! He was his only go to signing by the end.

He relied on Romero in cups, Shaw and Martial whom he publicly slated on a weekly basis still. Yet Martial's goals and assists were keeping him in a job by the skin of his teeth earlier this season. Persisted with a CB pairing of Smalling & Jones, Told the world that Young would play every week cause he was that good.
No one forced him to convert Rooney into a midfielder, no one likes to admit because it doesn’t fit their narrative it but in that third season the midfield would have been built around Rooney and he would have been terrible.

I’m not taking it too literally, LVG’s style and philosophy in theory were fine but he was completely outdated in terms of how he put it into practice. It was nothing like the more modern implementation and very little for any successor to build on.

He introduced youth when players when injured when the injured players he ditched the youth with the exception of Rashford. CBJ, Varela and TFM were all dumped for the same old players.
 

Keefy18

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Is that some achievement?

Yes Jose was worse in terms of football but at least he wasn't trying to talk about some philosophy deceiving people the way LVG did. Jose was also a failure in transfers but we did get some quality: Pogba, Dalot and Lindelof.

My only point is you can't say LVG didn't have the players. No one forced him to buy Di Maria, Falcao, Blind, Depay, Schneiderlin and what not.
Didn't say it was, but it was a better position to be in than when Jose left us off, which is the feckin point I'm making but folks decide to go with personal hatred over common sense.

Like I've said, no manager gets it 100% spot on... Likewise LVG gave us Martial, Rashford, Romero, Shaw and Herrera.
 

el3mel

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As @Aloysius's Back 3 stated already his midfield was dreadful and he couldn't possibly address all issues immediately within 2 seasons.

No manager could not even Ferguson. Ferguson often took at least 3-4 years to rebuild sides each time, sometimes longer. It took Ferguson 4 seasons to win a cup, 6 to win the league. When he rebuilt the team from 93-94 we didn't have another truly great side until 1999 with the treble 5 years later.
In the early 2000's he had a woeful run again and didn't have another truly great side until his CL winning side of 08, that was another 4 year turn around. From 2008-13 Ferguson basically let the side rot, Moyes did nowt to address that and LVG came in and started to rebuild for a new generation.

On a side note, Bastian & Falcao were both were the punt. Dirt cheap, heaps of experience and folks were delighted at the time. Quite a few clubs around Europe are making use of the 2 year loan type transfer, Juve being the masters of it!
That's not true. He signed 4 midfielders in his 2 summers, Herrera, Morgan, Bastian and Blind. He switched Blind to defense, benched Herrera for no reason and the other 2 were dreadful signings. If he had made proper signings instead of at least 3 of these, the midfield issue would have been solved. It was his own fault. His targets were terrible.

Defence
Smalling and Blind were very good at CB! Need I mention that Blind is now in a CL Semi Final and having a cracking season? Rojo was only playing due to Shaw's broken leg remember? Prior to that leg break he was absolutely superb early in that season. Rojo wasn't made for LB, but he done well at CB. If not for his injuries he would probably be a regular in our back line, It's a pity but he should definitely be sold.
Valencia was still performing to a very high level at this point, but Varela was being introduced to the side at this point.

Jose shipped out Blind & Verala, fell out with Shaw.
As I stated previously, LVG's style was based on attaining possession in our own half as much as possible to decrease number of shots on us. That worked in making our games dead and ending in 1-0 or something but the defense itself was far from good. Whenever the opponent had a chance on us it was 9 times out of 10 De Gea saving our arse. Good defense is that which depends on its own to deal with attacks, not on midfield keeping the ball to decrease chances and GK to save their arses most of time.

Fell out with Shaw ? Shaw was a permanent starter this season prior to Mourinho sacking.

Also Shaw was underwhelming in LVG's first season.

Midfield
Rooney would of been replaced or phased out similarly to how Jose done it I'm sure. Carrick retired that season, it was announced whilst LVG was still in charge.

Jose gave us Pogba, Matic and still relied consistently on Fellaini. Which is fair enough, no complaints there. We'll never know how LVG would of dealt with the MF issue.
I talked about the midfield issues above. As I said, he made 4 signings in midfield, only one was good, Herrera, and he was benched by LVG for no reason. The rest were dreadful, which led to him using Moyes midfield again by the end of his reign.

Attack
The front 3 is actually are 3 top scoring players post Ferguson still, believe it or not. Lukaku is 4th.

Jose phased out Martial, Pushed Rashford from CF to RW and he went on nearly a 30 game run without a goal under Jose then. Mata became bit part and a sub. He brought in Lukaku & Zlatan.

Martial is still scoring more consistently than Lukaku. No complaints about Zlatan but he was a quick fix and it hurt Rashford / Martial developing in reality but folks at the time were giving it loads about how they'd learn from them, did they feck!
Your big problem in these discussion is your obsession with Mourinho. I don't get the comparison with Mourinho in every part in every one of your replays. We're talking about LVG reign and his attempt of rebuild and why it's a massive failure. You need to realize Mourinho failing doesn't change the fact LVG was crap, as much as LVG being crap doesn't change the fact Moyes was dogshite.

Now the attack, where do we begin ?

2 years of transfer business under LVG. Only one, one! attacking signing succeeded, Martial. The other good player he added, Rashford, wasn't planned to even play as he was planning on depending on Will Keane and brought him back from loan during that Jan. Rashford was a complete lucky hit. Before that EL game there was no indication of LVG putting him in his plans.

His other 2 signings in the attack failed miserably, Depay, Di Maria and Falcao. Thanks to that we had to enter his second year still depending on Mata and Lingard being shoehorned on the wing (ironically we're still at the same point now, which is ridiculous too for Mourinho).

The front 3 LVG build after 2 years of transfer business was number 10 and 9s playing on the wing including 2 inconsistent youngsters, no top striker, no top winger, no player that can score +20 goals a season. How was that an attack that was supposed to build on to challenge for the league later on ?

Our youth side was starting to decline as well prior to LVG showing up and more recently we are starting to see an improvement again due to his work over his 2 years. Chong, Gomes, Garner, TFM & Tuanzebe all signed or started to make improvements during LVG's tenure.
His strategy with youth was throwing as many of them as possible in the first team and waiting for one lucky hit for him to be proud and talk a lot about it. That's hardly a good strategy. If you're going to randomly throw 15 youngsters in, definitely one of them will be proven good or something.

Having an eye for talent is choosing certain targets to get promoted, not throwing everyone anywhere, sorry.

DDG
Valencia / Varela Smalling Blind Shaw
Carrick Replaced / Herrera (no idea with who)
New Signing / & New Signing / Rooney
Memphis Rashford Martial

Introduced Chong, TFM & Tuanzebe more consistently. Transfers are very difficult to say who he would of signed as it was 3 years ago and his focus was never on superstars more so youth with a hunger to prove themselves.

Kinda funny, that's exactly what Ole is saying he wants now in new signings and hell I'm bored of reading supporters saying it too now and saying Ole will fix us. LVG was saying the same thing 3 years ago!

There was no reason to give LVG another season. His project had already failed. His 2 seasons had 2 absolutely terrible markets. He signed 11 players, sold 2 of them so that's 9 players added and we still had no proper midfielder, no dependable defense and no top attackers up front. That's underwhelming after about 250-300m spent in 2 years prior to the current inflation.

There was no indication the 3rd one would be any more successful or his signing would have been any better. He failed to address the issues in the team, signed terrible players that didn't help and by the end of his reign absolutely no issue left by Moyes was solved by him.

His project had failed and a 3rd season would have been a waste as much as his 2 seasons. He wouldn't have solved that mess in one other transfer market. He would have in the previous 2 if he could.
 

Keefy18

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No one forced him to convert Rooney into a midfielder, no one likes to admit because it doesn’t fit their narrative it but in that third season the midfield would have been built around Rooney and he would have been terrible.

I’m not taking it too literally, LVG’s style and philosophy in theory were fine but he was completely outdated in terms of how he put it into practice. It was nothing like the more modern implementation and very little for any successor to build on.

He introduced youth when players when injured when the injured players he ditched the youth with the exception of Rashford. CBJ, Varela and TFM were all dumped for the same old players.
Or you know he was stuck with Rooney on a whopper 5 year deal which was not of his making? We really don't know how it would of played out.

So, Giggs debuted for an injured Irwin. What's your point?

Ferguson often debuted youth players due to senior players being injured or banned, what does it matter?