Oh yea, although is that one signing that can be attributed to both managers as we were scouting him for a long time? And Blind, just cause I love Blind. He needs to leave but I think he's a really good footballer.
Rafael da Silva: Van Gaal called me and said "You can leave. The meeting lasted 1 minute"
- Thread starter RedDevil@84
- Start date
Yeah, didn’t we come incredibly close to signing him when Moyes was still in charge? That whole fiasco with the fake lawyers?
Yup, can remember watching all that unfold on SSN, it was surreal
so Herrera is one both Moyes and LvG can claim Um no it doesn’t answer my question.
Moyes was beyond terrible, dour, played awful football, got trashed and humiliated by the big teams and took us from 1st to 7th.
LVG brought our credibility back, got us beating good teams again rather than the pathetic crushing losses under Moyes. Got us back in the Champions league and won us an FA Cup.
It’s honestly crazy why there’s any debate who was worse.
Not everybody in life sees eye to eye, its not very classy of Rafeal to come out and give all the details in a newpaper piece is it? People are moved on, that's life, Rafeal should build a bridge and get over it.
Agreed. There was actual damage done by Van Gaal. Moyes can be forgiven as the actual structure at the club could not use hindsight to understand that gutting the backroom staff for Moyes to bring his own in was the wrong move. But what manager would not do that? It was a stupid move but not really one that could not have been changed as bringing a new regime brings new staff.
The single only way Moyes could have actually had an impact on the club would be to have come in, not touched a thing and managed the team with SAF's hand up his backside and making him tell everybody what to do.
Is that a realistic scenario?
LVG actively did damage and reduced the squad from 17 outfield senior players to 14 and replaced them with players from the academy that were nowhere near ready. I also portion some of the 23's being relegated to this move as well.
He actually made structural changes in his own name that have damaged the club beyond his stay. The same cannot be said about Moyes who's knock-on effects were cosmetic and then gigantically ballsed up by Van Gaal.
Travelling from Australia to watch United lose 1-2 to Norwich at Old Trafford and not even have enough shots on target to actually win the game is the lowest point of a bleak three seasons under both managers. Both of whom nowhere near good enough and have their own catalog of errors attributed to them.
Thats irrelevant to my point since LVG's comments happened over 3 years before this interview. Considering LVG was quite vocal about the manner of his sacking then it makes it quite hypocritical if this was how he dealt with Rafael.
Loved Rafa. Such a pity about injuries.. always rated him.
Thanks OP for sharing.
It's a great interview. A lot of insights.
The bit about Moyes was interesting. Seems like Moyes is a nervous wreck and his mentality was transmitted to the players on the pitch. Even when Moyes didn't want instruct the players to play long balls down the channel, the players would automatically do so because they could feel his nervousness when they try to bring the ball out of their own half.
It's a great interview. A lot of insights.
The bit about Moyes was interesting. Seems like Moyes is a nervous wreck and his mentality was transmitted to the players on the pitch. Even when Moyes didn't want instruct the players to play long balls down the channel, the players would automatically do so because they could feel his nervousness when they try to bring the ball out of their own half.
Always liked Rafael but he had lost his way and needed a fresh start. Still better than bloody Darmian though, selling Rafa and signing him was a sackable offence in itself.
I reckon he'd have done a better job than Valencia, certainly better than Darmain.
Steadied the ship my arse.
This revisionism about the late United careers of Rafael, Nani and Hernandez needs to stop. They were busted flushes and most people agreed it was the right decision to get rid of them at the time. Of course they couldn't still do a job at United, just look at the way their careers have pummeled since then.
Hernandez did a good job at Leverkusen though.
I think the issue was that LVG left us with precious little striking force by getting rid of all of them in the way he did. He entitled to of course, but he had feck all options and got lucky with Rashford coming through the way he did
That’s not necessarily true. Rojo, Romero, Blind, Martial, Herrera have all made significant contributions under Jose.
Rafa is a true red devil, a proven player in PL. His form in 2012-13 season was phenomenal just to be corrupted by the arrival of two consecutive disasters right after that. I believe he can do it at least better than what Valencia is providing but at the same time, i dont put too much hope on that because it seems that Jose’s safe control philosophy wont afford him to have Rafa whose personality may cost the team an accidental red card at any time on his bad day, hence Valencia or someone sharing his profile would probably a safe choice in Jose’s dream defence
Well i am sceptical the Mata signing was Moyes idea, and despite liking him as a player he hasn't been a great player for United in my opinion. In some ways i think he has held us back from getting a proper right winger. Van Gaal also signed Herrera who has been a good player for United and Blind and Romero have both been good servants. I would actually rate Blind alongside Mata in terms of contribution.
Setting the signings comparisons aside i don't disagree that Van Gaal did massive damage to United, damage that Mourinho is still trying to fix.
But i still don't see how Moyes is being excused here, everything that has happened to the club since 2013 was set in motion by Moyes and his complete incompetence. Even setting aside the disastrous on pitch performances, he set the foundations for the clusterfeck that Van Gaal made of the squad.
In 2013 the squad that Ferguson had already let get past it's sell by date (understandably) needed key additions. Moyes didn't provide them, and no i don't think Fellaini or Mata solved any of the key problems back then. By 2014 not only were we a few years behind in rebuilding the squad because of Moyes we were also losing the experience of Evra, Vidic, Ferdinand, Giggs etc. all in one go. Players Moyes should have at least partly replaced.
He left a mess for Van Gaal and yes Van Gaal made it much worse through his own crazy decisions. But Moyes still did massive damage to the club in his season. As i said earlier everyone can have their own view on just how much damage each manager did during their respective tenures. But to suggest Moyes didn't do much or even worse no damage is nonsense in my opinion. People hate LVG and i can understand why, but that shouldn't lead to them rewriting history and absolving Moyes of his share of responsibility for United's current predicament just to heap more criticism on Van Gaal.
I think theres a case to be made that in some of his games a traffic cone would have been better or at least as good as Darmian.
Rafael for United was light years ahead of him in terms of ability and attitude.
Moved Valencia to rb in realityGot us Darmian instead
LVG is getting a lot of flack on here.
He tried his best and it simply was not good enough.
His bluntness is what several people on here don't like and I get that.
But him getting rid of Silva, was the right decision, as Silva was injured for most of the time.
He needs to show some compassion, though.
He tried his best and it simply was not good enough.
His bluntness is what several people on here don't like and I get that.
But him getting rid of Silva, was the right decision, as Silva was injured for most of the time.
He needs to show some compassion, though.
One side of a story. Doesn't really mean much.
What goes around, comes around..!
Sounds like karma came to LvG and bit him in the arse..!!
‘In reality’, I’m not really sure where I claimed he didn’t move Valencia to right back?
In Van Gaal’s first year, Rafael was his back up. In his second year Van Gaal decided in all his wisdom it had to be Darmian.
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport...ster-uniteds-back-up-right-back-10403751.html
He did actually get some good results in big teams (against Liverpool notably) but that was negated by his absolutely pathetic results in his second season against lower table sides. I don't see how we got our credibility back either. What does that actually mean? We made some mild progress by getting into a competition we then got knocked out of at the group stages the following season, and when LVG left he'd barely finished with more points than Moyes had in spite of the fact he'd been given enough money to ensure competing for the title again was the minimum requirement. Was an absolute failure irrespective of how we view Moyes.
Agreed. Also logically 7 months vs 2 seasons of crap one of obviously way more damaging than the other.
Again the reason Van Gaal was so much worse than moyes is because he actually had led top teams before so we really did buy into all the crap he was spewing
Moyes didn’t instill any style to the team. Maybe that’s why he failed so bad but whatever it was his damage was not lasting
Just because LVG may overall be a better manager than moyes it doesn’t mean he was better for us.
If you don’t believe in the lasting damage and the way we played like zombies just look at the stats. Similar points.
And like I mentioned 7 months of crap vs 2 seasons of crap is a big difference. You could tell moyes was out of his depth and he’d say stuff like “I don’t know what we can do” in press conferences. The guy couldn’t manage the club well and it was clear
LVG on the other hand destroyed this club instilling a mindset and mentality that we all agreed to thinking it wouldn’t lead to success. It led to nothing but 2 years of failure and money wasted.
Di Maria, Darmian, Schweinstieger, Falcao, Schneiderlin, blind. All failures. Let’s not forget that my captain shall always play.
No one in their right minds would think that moyes was better. End of moyes tenure even rival fans felt sorry for us. That’s how bad he was.
Van Gaal was a complete dckhead towards players in his time at Bayern and the Dutch national team. His captain van Bommel left Bayern because of his clash with van Gaal. He spoke up to him to protect a teammate in the locker room, that time he crossed a line with van Gaal and their relationship never restored. In our national team he was a complete dckhead towards Sneijder. Just look at this Youtube video: /watch?v=DrzzjWZg6f4 at 2:10 it starts. He gets mad towards Sneijder just because the Cameras are there to film it. He's trying to show how good of a 'leader' he is, which resulted in our star player absolutely hating him. After the WC of 2014 Sneijder openly spoke out about van Gaal's behaviour towards him. It wasn't pretty to say the least.
Van Gaal isn't fit to handle big players, they always end up hating him. Although he performed really good at the wc of 2014, the players only had to deal with him during the time on the NT. Just imagine how much players would get to dislike him working with him for 2 seasons straight...
Van Gaal isn't fit to handle big players, they always end up hating him. Although he performed really good at the wc of 2014, the players only had to deal with him during the time on the NT. Just imagine how much players would get to dislike him working with him for 2 seasons straight...
Moyes was appointed in early 9th May 2013 and sacked in late 22nd April 2014. For the sake of 2/3 weeks thats a year. So not exactly 7 months, he wasn't appointed in late September.
Van Gaal was a failure overall no one can really argue that. But he did something in each of his two seasons that i don't believe Moyes could have done as United manager. Qualified for the Champions League, won a trophy and regularly won home and away against the top 6 sides in the league. Based on that not sure how an argument can be made that Moyes was better.
This was a Van Gaal mistake. A talented player and natural fullback who fought for the club. Different to someone like Nani who even SAF struggled with.
No it wasnt stop this nonsense. Moyes took the champions to 7th
That was a great interview, shame about all the injuries.
And Van Gaal left us from 7th to 6th
I think telling the player straight that he can leave is far more better than freezing him out of 1st team, demoted him to reserve team and even cleared out his locker in 1st team without his acknowledgement. It is also better than taking away a player’s jersey number without formally informing him in advance.
Van Gaal tore up a title-winning squad and replaced nearly every single player he sold with an even worse one (Rafael > Darmian, Evans > Rojo, Kagawa > Di Maria, Welbeck > Depay, Hernandez > Falcao, Fletcher > Schneiderlin). The only replacements which have you can make a defence of on merit rather than name are Herrera for Cleverley and Shaw for Evra, and neither of those were really his signings (and Evra should have stayed anyway).
Add in the fact that most of those players have either already left the club or have one foot out the door and how anyone can see him as anything other than catastrophic is beyond me.
Add in the fact that most of those players have either already left the club or have one foot out the door and how anyone can see him as anything other than catastrophic is beyond me.
He didn’tAnd Van Gaal left us from 7th to 6th
4th didnt happen then? okAnd Van Gaal left us from 7th to 6th
So 6 is higher than 7And Van Gaal left us from 7th to 6th
didn’t you know that LVG accomplishment nothing according to the cafe and Moyes was a genius.
Bring back Moyes! He’s proven since he’s left us what’s a top quality manager he is.
I think people say that shit because they are either a WUM or of a brexiteer/trump mindset.