Guardian Interview - Louis van Gaal: ‘I thought Manchester United could buy every player'

Kemizee

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roonster09

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Did they not take your advice?

I thought always Manchester United can buy every player because they have a lot of power. Seemingly a few players were not reachable for Manchester United. I cannot understand but it was like that.
Poor Van Gaal never checked our transfer history and how many players we missed even when ManUtd was trophy winning machine.

Also looks good interview. Shame it didn't work, could have been so much better playing very good football. Also the way he was sacked was very poor, I mean the way it was handled.
 

Skills

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We're obviously not a sugar daddy club, but we did back him significantly. The fact that he thought Memphis would be a creative solution, exposes his own failures.

It's a good interview though, and I don't think he's particularly bitter about the club. He seems to understand the nature of the business. Funnily it seems like he probably would've been less bitter if we sacked him mid-season, rather than wait till the end of the year.
 

SecondFig

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Interesting read. Always liked the man and his uncanny sense of humor but his intransigence caused him to be rightly sacked.

And I feel he has not totally forgiven the club for the manner of his sacking.

He was a good manager in the past but football had passed him by and he stubbornly refused to come to terms with that.
Same here - and totally understand why he was pissed with the timing and announcement of his sacking. But it wasn't working.

However, like Moyes before, and Jose after, the blame should ultimately fall on Woodward. Sooner he's removed from footballing decisions the better
 

Lennon7

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It's funny he said he enjoyed England partly because there was always support for the manager (i.e. him). I remember a lot of discontent with LvG, even more so than Mourinho.
 

AJ10

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Shame the way it ended but having 1 shot on target while keeping 60/70% possession isn't the way forward, If I remember correctly he went full on keep ball after that Leicester city game instead of continuing to play attacking football.

That pre season :drool:, Had high hopes.
 

Bwuk

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Agree with everything he says in this interview tbh.
 

Lennon7

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He does talk a lot of sense does LvG, and the way he's talking kind of proves that the issue for every manager we've had is Woodward and the board. Not saying we should've kept auld Louis as he was a stubborn tool, but we need to change more at the club other than our manager every couple of seasons.
 

arthurka

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Good interview, think Van Gaal is an proud honest man. Nice to see that things are even worse behind the scenes than what I thought.
 

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It's funny he said he enjoyed England partly because there was always support for the manager (i.e. him). I remember a lot of discontent with LvG, even more so than Mourinho.
Our fans gave him a chant from the moment he got here. He probably never had his name sung at all the other clubs he managed and was actually successful at.

That kind of blind faith and loyalty is fairly unique trait at Liverpool and Manchester United.
 

Eddy_JukeZ

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Actually a pretty good interview.

That bit about Woodward having a right hand man is interesting.
 

Tony Babangida

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Stuff about Rooney was interesting. What was he getting up to outside of football at that time?
 

Adisa

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Still insist he should have seen out his contract.
 

Lennon7

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Our fans gave him a chant from the moment he got here. He probably never had his name sung at all the other clubs he managed and was actually successful at.

That kind of blind faith and loyalty is fairly unique trait at Liverpool and Manchester United.
Oh yeah I know, and I made that point in another thread. I'm just saying that in general Louis lost the support of the fans due to his style of play and man management. I'm always against outwardly expressing this discontent at games such as booing or protesting but I'm pretty sure a fair few fans were doing this.
 

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Once again highlighting the need for a DoF.
Would've been the one manager to benefit from it. His transfer record is abysmal and he seems to prefer to focus his attention on coaching his players. A DOF to take care of recruitment would've benefitted van Gaal, and maybe addressed the creativity issues he failed to solve.
 

Neil_Buchanan

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If he'd have gotten a bit luckier with his big transfers he could still be managing united. I'm not defending his time here but I also believe he gets way too much stick.
 

Brophs

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Wasn’t one of LVG’s main complaints that he didn’t want to buy players, preferring to leave that to someone else, but that’s what the club wanted from him?
 

El Zoido

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Interesting that he said Rooney was over the hill, yet it wasn’t until Mourinho came in that he was moved on. LVG’s insistence on sticking with Rooney was one the most frustrating aspects of his tenure. And it’s even more frustrating now knowing that LVG knew he was finished yet stuck with him.
 

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Wasn’t one of LVG’s main complaints that he didn’t want to buy players, preferring to leave that to someone else, but that’s what the club wanted from him?
He's always worked as a head coach so I can see why that would be a problem. I think it would be a problem for Guardiola, Klopp and Poch too. These guys spend a lot of time and effort coaching their teams so adding in recruitment to their workload is just overkill.

It's why I believe the club needs to segregate recruitment and coaching into their own functions. The manager should identify what his team needs to improve. The recruitment team (scouts) should then find solutions to meet that requirement and the DOF/head of recruitment should then be the ones picking the best solution. You can't expect a manager in modern football to be out there scouting players, looking into their backgrounds and skillsets with all the other responsibilities they have.
 

Scarecrow

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Interesting that he said Rooney was over the hill, yet it wasn’t until Mourinho came in that he was moved on. LVG’s insistence on sticking with Rooney was one the most frustrating aspects of his tenure. And it’s even more frustrating now knowing that LVG knew he was finished yet stuck with him.
He also says he was still one of his best players.
 

Baneofthegame

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If he'd have gotten a bit luckier with his big transfers he could still be managing united. I'm not defending his time here but I also believe he gets way too much stick.
It’s probably not wise to rely on luck for transfers, but I agree he gets too much stick for his time.

His recruitment policy was awful though and like many said he would of benefited from a DoF.
 

Vidyoyo

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Just read it and came here for comments. I have loads of time for Van Gaal and that's a great interview, you can tell his football intelligence is immense.

Both a significant strength and weakness of his is never admitting to his own flaws. Neither he nor the club were the sole problem back then, rather something in-between.
 

JPRouve

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Wasn’t one of LVG’s main complaints that he didn’t want to buy players, preferring to leave that to someone else, but that’s what the club wanted from him?
I think that it is the problem that he is alluding to. At United when you are the manager you have to do most of the leg work, the only people supporting you are the chief scout and the board. In most other clubs, LVG would be in contact with at least one technical director on an almost daily basis, someone that is totally focused on the football side of things while Woodward and Arnold are obviously split, they can give you a budget but that's the only actual support that you will get.
 

BarstoolProphet

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A very good interview. Refreshingly honest. Rare to hear constructive criticism instead of bitterness. The bit about Rooney probably tells us how much power he had at the club. Made captain even though the manager thought he was over the hill.

What sums up our problems the most is the part about playing style, identity etc. where he was surprised that there were no mention of it during the interview process. Which is illustrated with the managerial appointments we've had post SAF.
 

Aloysius's Back 3

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He was changing everything around, giving young players chance by chance that Rooney was used to provide a sense of stability whilst everything was changing. That's why he said his captain will always play.


I would have loved to see how he would have set up Rashford, Martial, Memphis & even Lingard if he had a pre-season to do it.

Never agreed with the whole let's buy Zlatan & Lukaku whilst watching everyone compete on the left hand side.
 

BlueHaze

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So Di Maria wasn't his choice? "I had other players on the list"
 

Skills

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So Di Maria wasn't his choice? "I had other players on the list"
The other players probably weren't available or interested in joining us (as alluded to by the title). Sanchez for instance preferred arsenal because they were in the Champions League.
 

Marcelinho87

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Interesting that he said Rooney was over the hill, yet it wasn’t until Mourinho came in that he was moved on. LVG’s insistence on sticking with Rooney was one the most frustrating aspects of his tenure. And it’s even more frustrating now knowing that LVG knew he was finished yet stuck with him.
What if Woodward and Co insisted he played as he was the face of the club? Probably not but nothing would surprise me with the buffoons we have in charge.
 

Keefy18

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Stuff about Rooney was interesting. What was he getting up to outside of football at that time?
A drunken mess quite often.

Drunken boxing matches with Bardsley?

He wasn't in shape at all and often overweight. He couldn't play up front any longer and thanks to Moyes and Ed giving him a huge 5 year deal, LVG was very much stuck with very expensive, under performing player.
 

Castia

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I believed in LvG’s system.

It was boring at times but I feel we needed 2-3 players in midfield to spark into life. Di Maria was bought to do exactly that, if that transfer would have worked out it could have been different for LvG.

On paper the recruitment seemed good as well, we signed 4 highly rated youngsters in Shaw, Memphis, Martial and Blind and reinforced them with Di Maria, Schneiderlin (who looked a top player before we bought him) and Falcao and Herrera.

It seemed like we atleast had a plan back then.