Van Gaal

[el3mel]

How so? DDG is shit with the ball and his distribution is very poor. He identified the issue and wanted to fix it.

De Gea saved LVG's arse with his saves far more than I can count and far more than any other United manager post SAF. How was that a good idea to agree to sell him ?

And regarding LVG's plan. It was crap, that was plain and simple. His idea about football is to pass the ball endlessly between CBs and midfielders in your own half to decrease the amount of attacks on you while you yourself barely getting out of your half to attack yourself. Simply killing the entire game for both teams and waiting for a lucky moment here and there. How is that a good plan that we should have accepted selling our only world class player for its sake ? It's not like he was building an attacking team or anything.

LVG was far more defensive at United than Mourinho, Ole and Moyes combined. He just did it in a different way, a more boring and tedious way.

 

[dirkey]

De Gea saved LVG's arse with his saves far more than I can count and far more than any other United manager post SAF. How was that a good idea to agree to sell him ?

And regarding LVG's plan. It was crap, that was plain and simple. His idea about football is to pass the ball endlessly between CBs and midfielders in your own half to decrease the amount of attacks on you while you yourself barely getting out of your half to attack yourself. Simply killing the entire game for both teams and waiting for a lucky moment here and there. How is that a good plan that we should have accepted selling our only world class player for its sake ? It's not like he was building an attacking team or anything.

LVG was far more defensive at United than Mourinho, Ole and Moyes combined. He just did it in a different way, a more boring and tedious way.

Exactly. God, remember how boring it was. Then he'd have the arrogance and audacity to come out and state how we "dominated" the game if we had so much as one more effort on goal than opposition. Opposition would basically sit back knowing we'd pass the ball around and do nothing with it. Awful stuff.

 

[Aloysius's Back 3]

I don't agree with selling De gea when the rest of the squad is sh*te.

However - I don't see us becoming a top team defensively until the moment we get a keeper that wants to control his box & actually act as an additional defender with his hands than purely relying on reflexes. The passes are also bothersome but is not a good enough reason to let him go.

 

[bond19821982]

De Gea saved LVG's arse with his saves far more than I can count and far more than any other United manager post SAF. How was that a good idea to agree to sell him ?

And regarding LVG's plan. It was crap, that was plain and simple. His idea about football is to pass the ball endlessly between CBs and midfielders in your own half to decrease the amount of attacks on you while you yourself barely getting out of your half to attack yourself. Simply killing the entire game for both teams and waiting for a lucky moment here and there. How is that a good plan that we should have accepted selling our only world class player for its sake ? It's not like he was building an attacking team or anything.

LVG was far more defensive at United than Mourinho, Ole and Moyes combined. He just did it in a different way, a more boring and tedious way.

His idea of defending is , if you have the ball opposition team can't score ,means less shots on target for opposition. Our defenders couldn't do that thing and we ended up conceding possession which led to more shots. He needed ball retaining midfielders but just couldn't get the right ones . Bastian was too old as well.

 

[el3mel]

His idea of defending is , if you have the ball opposition team can't score ,means less shots on target for opposition. Our defenders couldn't do that thing and we ended up conceding possession which led to more shots. He needed ball retaining midfielders but just couldn't get the right ones . Bastian was too old as well.

This is all good when you're having possession in front of your opponent's goal and pressing them like Pep not passing aimlessly between your CBs and midfielders in your own half. This plan was beyond terrible and we weren't going anywhere with it.

 

[buckooo1978]

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.

yes well hindsight tells us that it was a disaster - we sold/released Van Persie, Nani, Rafael, Evans, Fletcher, Hernandez, Kagawa, Zaha, Keane for about 40 million combined

we replaced them with players totalling about 320 million and we saw some of the worst football Old Trafford has witnessed - the players we sold weren't perfect by any means but most were still very effective - look at how Zaha developed, Pep tried to bring Evans to City, Rafael is still playing well in the Champions League, Kagawa had some good seasons, Zaha would easily command a 50 million transfer fee based on his ability, Keane is an England international ahead of Jones/Smalling - you could go on

if players were sold because they weren't performing how much responsibility does Van Gaal and his awful system take?

we had a fantastic player like Di Maria and Van Gaal played him as a striker in the end - he hadn't a clue how to use him and it was no surprise to see him do so well for PSG - we took a 15 million hit on him I think.

with the kind of outlay he made (320 million according to transfermarket) it was nothing short of a disaster and of all his signings only Martial, Romero and Luke Shaw are part of our future. The jury is still out on Shaw and Martial as they have struggled at times with consistency. Romero on a free was actually his best signing and the only one you would say was a great signing. Meanwhile we can't get shot of Rojo/Darmian

 

[Keefy18]

De Gea saved LVG's arse with his saves far more than I can count and far more than any other United manager post SAF. How was that a good idea to agree to sell him ?

And regarding LVG's plan. It was crap, that was plain and simple. His idea about football is to pass the ball endlessly between CBs and midfielders in your own half to decrease the amount of attacks on you while you yourself barely getting out of your half to attack yourself. Simply killing the entire game for both teams and waiting for a lucky moment here and there. How is that a good plan that we should have accepted selling our only world class player for its sake ? It's not like he was building an attacking team or anything.

LVG was far more defensive at United than Mourinho, Ole and Moyes combined. He just did it in a different way, a more boring and tedious way.

There's no way LVG actually wanted us to play like that. He didn't have the players he wanted to carry out his "philosophy". Simple question, was that really a LVG side what he had at United? Cause it looked nothing like his Bayern, Barca or Ajax sides. Nor did it look like his Dutch team either.

Jose had 10 games end 0-0, only 1 less than LVG. De Gea also made more saves during Jose's tenure than LVG's. Jose invited pressure on by conceding possession which is obviously a far more dangerous and damaging tactic. At least under LVG our players worked with the feckin ball. They knew how to retain and pass and were technically far more sound players having worked that way.

An old article but when you look at the actual 7 point plan, can you say you saw anything different at United in his 2 and a bit years?

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/dec/22/devil-and-jose-mourinho

1) The game is won by the team who commits fewer errors. - Always moaned about errors. Overly reliant on set pieces.

2) Football favours whoever provokes more errors in the opposition. - Same as above and he felt having the ball meant you were more likely to commit an error, overly reliant on set pieces.

3) Away from home, instead of trying to be superior to the opposition, it’s better to encourage their mistakes. - Yep our away form was terrible

4) Whoever has the ball is more likely to make a mistake. - We were the laziest team throughout his tenure, always conceding possession to opposition

5) Whoever renounces possession reduces the possibility of making a mistake. - same as above

6) Whoever has the ball has fear. - I'd say Messi and Ronaldo oft shit themselves. What an idiotic sentiment.

7) Whoever does not have it is thereby stronger. - More tripe.

 

[Kaglish10]

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

How is playing a previous SS in a striker role a crime? Especially when we had no other striker in the team apart from Rashford? You really don't know how Young had looked in that role in training hence you're not in the right position to judge. Besides, Young was a SS before coming to Manutd! We shouldn't forget that fact!

Anyway, like @Keefy18 stated, not all of Van Gaal signings were bad. Martial looked good under him. Likewise Blind who looked good for the little price he was taken in. Schweisteiger also looked good before his injury. Depay looked good as a SS but there was no way we could have shunted Rooney out of the team. Besides, I think Depay looked good with Schweisteiger who had no problems with releasing him in acres of space until injury happened to him and the whole team became disoriented after that and we slipped off the top of the table as a result. Maybe it was Van Gaal's fault for banking on an injury prone Schweisteiger in his midfield but let's not forget the fact that schweisteiger was brought in as a cheap signing. It was just too difficult to ignore him at that cheap price. Our supposed creative playmaking midfielder (Herrera) signed by the board, who should have been able to deputise for Schweisteiger while he was out injured couldn't live up to the same expectation and looked clueless in a possession based midfield style hence our failure.

As for Di Maria, we already recouped most of his signing fees after he left for PSG. I really don't know why people still use him as a stick to beat Van Gaal, especialy for a player that didn't want to come here in the first place and didn't care.

Only Rojo and Darmain were poor. Besides, they were also punts taken in. Darmain is actually a bit better as a wingback rather than a fullback.

De Gea saved LVG's arse with his saves far more than I can count and far more than any other United manager post SAF. How was that a good idea to agree to sell him ?

And regarding LVG's plan. It was crap, that was plain and simple. His idea about football is to pass the ball endlessly between CBs and midfielders in your own half to decrease the amount of attacks on you while you yourself barely getting out of your half to attack yourself. Simply killing the entire game for both teams and waiting for a lucky moment here and there. How is that a good plan that we should have accepted selling our only world class player for its sake ? It's not like he was building an attacking team or anything.

LVG was far more defensive at United than Mourinho, Ole and Moyes combined. He just did it in a different way, a more boring and tedious way.

Maybe because the crappy sluggish players Van Gaal had in midfield displayed what they were made of. Players such as the sluggish past it Rooney and Mata, lethargic Fellaini (Carrick although was a bit better than the aforementioned but he was sluggish and almost immobile as well). It's quite funny to have people expect a fast tempo football from these kind of players in midfield. The sluggishness should be expected.

 

[el3mel]

There's no way LVG actually wanted us to play like that. He didn't have the players he wanted to carry out his "philosophy". Simple question, was that really a LVG side what he had at United? Cause it looked nothing like his Bayern, Barca or Ajax sides. Nor did it look like his Dutch team either.

Jose had 10 games end 0-0, only 1 less than LVG. De Gea also made more saves during Jose's tenure than LVG's. Jose invited pressure on by conceding possession which is obviously a far more dangerous and damaging tactic. At least under LVG our players worked with the feckin ball. They knew how to retain and pass and were technically far more sound players having worked that way.

An old article but when you look at the actual 7 point plan, can you say you saw anything different at United in his 2 and a bit years?

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/dec/22/devil-and-jose-mourinho

1) The game is won by the team who commits fewer errors. - Always moaned about errors. Overly reliant on set pieces.

2) Football favours whoever provokes more errors in the opposition. - Same as above and he felt having the ball meant you were more likely to commit an error, overly reliant on set pieces.

3) Away from home, instead of trying to be superior to the opposition, it’s better to encourage their mistakes. - Yep our away form was terrible

4) Whoever has the ball is more likely to make a mistake. - We were the laziest team throughout his tenure, always conceding possession to opposition

5) Whoever renounces possession reduces the possibility of making a mistake. - same as above

6) Whoever has the ball has fear. - I'd say Messi and Ronaldo oft shit themselves. What an idiotic sentiment.

7) Whoever does not have it is thereby stronger. - More tripe.

No he wanted us to play that way. He was very happy with our possession stats post game and never looked unhappy with us registering 1 shot a target per game. The stats say it all really :

Spoiler

How is that not stats of a team instructed to play that way ? We never played like that pre and post LVG. It was him. He wanted us to play that way. His ideas was if you have the ball in your own half most of the time you won't get shots on you, while waiting for a lucky moment upfront to score.

LVG was in reality the most anti-United manager we had signed. His football contradicts with everything we knew and supported the team for, from being fast, direct attacking team to an 80% possession in our own half team with 1 shot on target the entire game!

 

[Keefy18]

yes well hindsight tells us that it was a disaster - we sold/released Van Persie, Nani, Rafael, Evans, Fletcher, Hernandez, Kagawa, Zaha, Keane for about 40 million combined

RVP - Injury prone, ageing.
Nani - Board gifted him a huge deal, we were stuck taking what we could for him.
Rafael - Injury prone, had hardly kicked a ball in years
Fletcher - He had Chrons disease ffs. Again had hardly kicked a ball in years
Hernandez - Had one spurt of form in Germany and faded damn quickly, went 6 months the following season without a goal. His form under Moyes and LVG was poor and he was picking up injuries as well.
Keane - Average player
Kagawa - Wanted his release and again never set the PL alight sadly. Was a big fan of his.

Zaha was the main loss, he's doing well now at Palace, but it took a few years, arguably the only one there with an upside.

we replaced them with players totalling about 320 million and we saw some of the worst football Old Trafford has witnessed

Most were worth the risk at reasonable fees, some are still at the club like Shaw and Herrera (just about).
Romero, Martial, Blind and debuting Rashford.

if players were sold because they weren't performing how much responsibility does Van Gaal and his awful system take?

Personally, I don't think we ever really saw a LVG team. If he had that final year we would of seen more youth players introduced and focus on the long term, instead the board panicked with the Pep signing and went from a long term focus to short term in signing Jose. All the work was undone. Jose wanted ready made players, didn't give a monkeys about youth and carried out his usual plan.

we had a fantastic player like Di Maria and Van Gaal played him as a striker in the end - he hadn't a clue how to use him and it was no surprise to see him do so well for PSG - we took a 15 million hit on him I think.

He misused him sure, but there are 2 sides to every story. Remember ADM's letter of apology to Real? Stating he never wanted to leave, Perez forced him to and his wife didn't want to live in Manchester? He was stuck between a rock and hard place. PSG didn't have the money that summer and we were his only option. Mistake by the board more than anything in buying a player who didn't want to be at the club.

with the kind of outlay he made (320 million according to transfermarket) it was nothing short of a disaster and of all his signings only Martial, Romero and Luke Shaw are part of our future. The jury is still out on Shaw and Martial as they have struggled at times with consistency. Romero on a free was actually his best signing and the only one you would say was a great signing. Meanwhile we can't get shot of Rojo/Darmian

Well he achieved top 4 in season one and tied with it in the second season. The returns on that covered both transfer windows I'm sure.

Our transfer strategy has been dog shit for years and I include Fergie & Gill in on that too. Fergie let that squad rot away, refusing to deal with agents and falling out with many of them. Missed out on so many big name players those last 5 years or so and it wasn't all on the board either, he has openly admitted to not like Raiola.

Moyes / Woody hadn't a clue that first summer. LVG arrived late and we done the best we could, following summer everyone had a meltdown cause of sentimentality over riding the fact that we actually needed to rebuild, Fergie would of had rid of RVP and the rest as well if he was 5 years younger. Jose just went for shorterm-ism. Wanted instant impact players and to hell with youth.

It's been a mess from one and all and we are where we are because of how we've treated the football side of things from top to bottom for over a decade.

 

[el3mel]

How is playing a previous SS in a striker role a crime? Especially when we had no other striker in the team apart from Rashford? You really don't know how Young had looked in that role in training hence you're not in the right position to judge. Besides, Young was a SS before coming to Manutd! We shouldn't forget that fact!

Anyway, like @Keefy18 stated, not all of Van Gaal signings were bad. Martial looked good under him. Likewise Blind who looked good for the little price he was taken in. Schweisteiger also looked good before his injury. Depay looked good as a SS but there was no way we could have shunted Rooney out of the team. Besides, I think Depay looked good with Schweisteiger who had no problems with releasing him in acres of space until injury happened to him and the whole team became disoriented after that and we slipped off the top of the table as a result. Maybe it was Van Gaal's fault for banking on an injury prone Schweisteiger in his midfield but let's not forget the fact that schweisteiger was brought in as a cheap signing. It was just too difficult to ignore him at that cheap price. Our supposed creative playmaking midfielder (Herrera) signed by the board, who should have been able to deputise for Schweisteiger while he was out injured couldn't live up to the same expectation and looked clueless in a possession based midfield style hence our failure.

As for Di Maria, we already recouped most of his signing fees after he left for PSG. I really don't know why people still use him as a stick to beat Van Gaal, especialy for a player that didn't want to come here in the first place and didn't care.

Only Rojo and Darmain were poor. Besides, they were also punts taken in. Darmain is actually a bit better as a wingback rather than a fullback.

This is ridiculous. I can't believe people actually believe what they're writing here. Guess you discover new things every day.

 

[Keefy18]

No he wanted us to play that way. He was very happy with out possession stats post game and never looked unhappy with us registering 1 shot a target per game. The stats say it all really :

Spoiler

How is that not stats of a team instructed to play that way ? We never played like that pre and post LVG. It was him. He wanted us to play that way. His ideas was if you have the ball in your own half most of the time you won't get shots on you, while waiting for a lucky moment upfront to score.

LVG was in reality the most anti-United manager we had signed. His football contradicts with everything we knew and supported for, from being fast, direct attacking team to an 80% possession in our own half team with 1 shot on target the entire game!

Or you know he had to play that way cause he didn't have the players needed to play otherwise? Sometimes you gotta adapt to what you have. Every club has 2 transfer windows to make do the best they can, if they don't get exactly what they need, they make do.

Your ignoring the question I asked though, did this United side play like his Dutch side at the world cup? You know it didn't so how was it a perfect LVG team? I don't recall his Barca side being this boring either, I mean we had 2 of the best games in the history of the Champions League in 1999 against his Barca team, both games ending 3-3. His Barca team in 99 didn't look anything like his United team did it?

Most anti United manager? Yet he had more focus on youth than Fergie in his latter years, more than Moyes, More than Jose and now only Ole is doing the same. He debuted 20 plus youth players in 2 seasons.

United's philosophy is to play attacking football with a determined focus on youth. He got the latter bit right that's for sure.

But there's only so much you can do in such a rushed and stressful environment.

 

[el3mel]

Or you know he had to play that way cause he didn't have the players needed to play otherwise? Sometimes you gotta adapt to what you have. Every club has 2 transfer windows to make do the best they can, if they don't get exactly what they need, they make do.

Your ignoring the question I asked though, did this United side play like his Dutch side at the world cup? You know it didn't so how was it a perfect LVG team? I don't recall his Barca side being this boring either, I mean we had 2 of the best games in the history of the Champions League in 1999 against his Barca team, both games ending 3-3. His Barca team in 99 didn't look anything like his United team did it?

Most anti United manager? Yet he had more focus on youth than Fergie in his latter years, more than Moyes, More than LVG and now only Ole is doing the same. He debuted 20 plus youth players in 2 seasons.

United's philosophy is to play attacking football with a determined focus on youth. He got the latter bit right that's for sure.

But there's only so much you can do in such a rushed and stressful environment.

The Netherlands side in WC under him was tedious to watch. What are you talking about ? Have you watched them or just stopped after their first game vs Spain ? They were tedious and boring for the rest of the tournament. Their games vs Costa Rica and Argentine were unwatchable, especially the Argentine match. Believe it or not but that's LVG style, plain and simple.

I don't even want to talk about his strategy about youth which was shimply throwing as much youth as possible without thinking who fits so that he can get 1 or 2 of them correct and says he discovered him etc.

The only good things LVG did here was selling the deadwood (even though he fecked it up with his terrible transfer business), the Fa Cup and being lucky with Rashford (who wasn't planned to play anyway, as the guy brought Will Keane from loan about 1 or 2 months prior to that and was planning to play him instead if not for his injury later on).

 

[Roboc7]

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.

In a weak league we still missed the top 4 and the reality is Pep has long surpassed LVG you can’t compare the two side by side now. LVG’s peak was a Long time ago, great in his time but not in this era.

What exactly were people expecting from a third season of LVG, Rooney would have been our playmaker and everyone would have known the manager was retiring at the end of the season. It would have been a calamity if he had stayed and we would have wasted more time and money.

LVG should be admired for what he did in earlier in his career and I think it’s actually detrimental to him to try and pass off his Utd tenure as any kind of success.

 

[Sylar]

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.

Didn't he put young as a striker at 0-0 and took off tfm as rb (injury?) And we lost 3 nil?

Everybody talks about his master plan but he just threw a lot of shit at the wall and some things stuck but a lot didn't

He had martial as a striker scoring goals with ice cool finishes and puts him out wide to accommodate Rooney
Then does the same to rashford (right side Vs Liverpool away in Europa)

His gk sub in the world cup fooled a lot of people

 

[el3mel]

Didn't he put young as a striker at 0-0 and took off tfm as rb (injury?) And we lost 3 nil?

Everybody talks about his master plan but he just threw a lot of shit at the wall and some things stuck but a lot didn't

He had martial as a striker scoring goals with ice cool finishes and puts him out wide to accommodate Rooney
Then does the same to rashford (right side Vs Liverpool away in Europa)

His gk sub in the world cup fooled a lot of people

I remember we ended this Spurs game with this forward line :

Martial - Lingard - Rashford
Young

And we were expecting to score with this while we were losing 3-0.

More so, we created one chance this entire game which Martial created handedly but LVG acted in the presser like it was the reason we lost.

 

[Kaglish10]

The Netherlands side in WC under him was tedious to watch. What are you talking about ? Have you watched them or just stopped after their first game vs Spain ? They were tedious and boring for the rest of the tournament. Their games vs Costa Rica and Argentine were unwatchable, especially the Argentine match. Believe it or not but that's LVG style, plain and simple.

I don't even want to talk about his strategy about youth which was shimply throwing as much youth as possible without thinking who fits so that he can get 1 or 2 of them correct and says he discovered him etc.

The only good things LVG did here was selling the deadwood (even though he fecked it up with his terrible transfer business), the Fa Cup and being lucky with Rashford (who wasn't planned to play anyway, as the guy brought Will Keane from loan about 1 or 2 months prior to that and was planning to play him instead if not for his injury later on).

His team performance against Chile who defeated Spain, was probably forgotten by you or you couldn't keep up with the revisionism? Besides, Argentina was the negative side in the match you stated. Have you forgotten argentine's man of the match in most of their matches? Let me remind you, It was Mascherano!

Or the match against Costa Rica where Costa Rica's keeper, keylor Navas had a blinder in the match? How about the Dutch team's performance against Brazil in the 3rd place final?

The way some people go just to discredit Van Gaal is really astonishing. This is really ridiculous and pure hatred which has really obscured your views about Van Gaal.

Like I said earlier, no one should expect fast tempo play from the midfield of sluggish "past it" average Mata/Rooney, Carrick and Fellaini. It's even a record breaking for any coach to have won something with such a pathetic midfield. No wonder, Mourinho wanted Pogba and Matic at all cost.

That said, you can check Young's role during his last season at Aston villa, he was a SS for them.

 

[Red00012]

I don't agree with selling De gea when the rest of the squad is sh*te.

However - I don't see us becoming a top team defensively until the moment we get a keeper that wants to control his box & actually act as an additional defender with his hands than purely relying on reflexes. The passes are also bothersome but is not a good enough reason to let him go.

Post of the day goes to you Sir.

 

[Sylar]

This is ridiculous. I can't believe people actually believe what they're writing here. Guess you discover new things every day.

Young had been with us for about 5 years and never played striker
Yet getting played as a striker (not even a second striker ) is somehow defended

Too funny the length people go to defend lvg
Seen the same for Moyes and Jose

Don't defend every single thing but judge the overall thing
Sure if there are positives (top 4 and fa cup) point it out but don't act like these people are not to blame for the turd we were being served

 

[buckooo1978]

Or you know he had to play that way cause he didn't have the players needed to play otherwise? Sometimes you gotta adapt to what you have. Every club has 2 transfer windows to make do the best they can, if they don't get exactly what they need, they make do.

Your ignoring the question I asked though, did this United side play like his Dutch side at the world cup? You know it didn't so how was it a perfect LVG team? I don't recall his Barca side being this boring either, I mean we had 2 of the best games in the history of the Champions League in 1999 against his Barca team, both games ending 3-3. His Barca team in 99 didn't look anything like his United team did it?

Most anti United manager? Yet he had more focus on youth than Fergie in his latter years, more than Moyes, More than Jose and now only Ole is doing the same. He debuted 20 plus youth players in 2 seasons.

United's philosophy is to play attacking football with a determined focus on youth. He got the latter bit right that's for sure.

But there's only so much you can do in such a rushed and stressful environment.

theres a lot to disagree with in here

Van Gaal had 4 windows to build his team and spent 320 million- he signed 13 players which would fill a team.....of the 13 signings at least 9 of them were really poor.... Herrera was effective in spells but suffered under Jose, Martial has been good in spells and a similar story with Jose - inconsistent though and we are banking on him to develop. Shaw has started to show his quality this year to a degree but hes not in the same league as an Evra or Irwin. Only Romero could be called a great signing. That's not a good success rate in terms of purchases

we actually did play like his Dutch team at the World Cup - Spain match aside Holland really weren't that good a side at that competition and their game against Costa Rica was reminiscent of our FA cup match against Sheffield United - I think like this thread theres a lot of revisionism about Van Gaal

He did give young players a chance and credit to him for that - but you are being far far too kind when you talk about a 'rushed and stressful environment'.

 

[Sylar]

The way some people go just to discredit Van Gaal is really astonishing. This is really ridiculous and pure hatred which has really obscured your views about Van Gaal.

.

Ironic

 

[Keefy18]

The Netherlands side in WC under him was tedious to watch. What are you talking about ? Have you watched them or just stopped after their first game vs Spain ? They were tedious and boring for the rest of the tournament. Their games vs Costa Rica and Argentine were unwatchable, especially the Argentine match. Believe it or not but that's LVG style, plain and simple.

I don't even want to talk about his strategy about youth which was shimply throwing as much youth as possible without thinking who fits so that he can get 1 or 2 of them correct and says he discovered him etc.

The only good things LVG did here was selling the deadwood (even though he fecked it up with his terrible transfer business), the Fa Cup and being lucky with Rashford (who wasn't planned to play anyway, as the guy brought Will Keane from loan about 1 or 2 months prior to that and was planning to play him instead if not for his injury later on).

They scored 10 goals in the opening 3 group games OK 5 of them was against Spain. That's a world cup classic! Will always be remembered.

They then had a cracking game against the Ozzies ending 3-2 and was end to end stuff. There was 24 shots, 11 of which were on target! Cahill and RVP both scoring great goals
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/25285148

Their final game having already qualified was an OK watch as well from what I recall. Over 20 shots and 5 on target again.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/25285270

Holland vs Mexico - I recall watching it at the in-laws house at a BBQ, wasn't quite as good as the opening 3 games.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/27961190

Costa Rica - As 0-0 games go, it was very entertaining. End to end stuff and had that underdog feel to it. Remember it well and Holland were unlucky not score at least 3.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/28069208

Argentina - Woeful game.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/28122293

I missed the 3rd placed final game against Brazil so no idea, but scoring 3 goals against a decent Brazilian side? Couldn't of been all bad.

I don't for the life of me remember them being boring at all and the evidence shows otherwise and that was his most recent team prior to taking over at United.

 

[el3mel]

His team performance against Chile who defeated Spain, was probably forgotten by you or you couldn't keep up with the revisionism? Besides, Argentina was the negative side in the match you stated. Have you forgotten the argentine's man of the match in most of their matches? Let me remind you, It was Mascherano!

Or the match against Costa Rica where Costa Rica's keeper, keylor Navas had a blinder in the match? How about the Dutch team's performance against Brazil in the 3rd place final?

The way some people go just to discredit Van Gaal's image is really astonishing. This is really ridiculous and pure hatred which has really obscured your views about Van Gaal.

Like I said earlier, no one should expect fast tempo play from the midfield of sluggish past it average Mata/Rooney, Carrick and Fellaini. It's even a record breaking for any coach to have won something with such pathetic midfield. No wonder, Mourinho wanted Pogba and Matic at all cost.

That said, you can check Young's role during his last season at Aston villa, he was a SS for them.

I watched all their matches in the World Cup for obvious reasons and beside Spain they were tedious to watch. I hoped at this time it's just because it was a cup games and all and tbf he started attacking with us after the transfers joined but once we lost to Leicester he reverted back to the original coward he was.

Nothing wrong about LVG's career. He was a great manager and the man to be hired at one point but by the time he reached United he had become a terrible and past it manager.

That was Bayern statement when they sacked him (and by that time he was 4th in the league which wasn't qualifying for CL at this time, the interim manager salvaged 3rd and CL qualification later on) :

"It all started getting messy when he [Van Gaal] dropped Hans-Jorg Butt and replaced him with Thomas Kraft," he said.

"That brought insecurity into the defence and we could not hold out for much longer.

"Football should be enjoyable, but there has been nothing enjoyable about football at FC Bayern for a while now.

"And to say that he had the players behind him was a myth."

"The Manuel Neuer issue would never have escalated like it did and we would never have had any problems with the fans," he said.

"Problems were created which were totally unnecessary and which have ripped the club to pieces.

"Louis Van Gaal should consider what he has done."

 

[Keefy18]

theres a lot to disagree with in here

Van Gaal had 4 windows to build his team and spent 320 million- he signed 13 players which would fill a team.....of the 13 signings at least 9 of them were really poor.... Herrera was effective in spells but suffered under Jose, Martial has been good in spells and a similar story with Jose - inconsistent though and we are banking on him to develop. Shaw has started to show his quality this year to a degree but hes not in the same league as an Evra or Irwin. Only Romero could be called a great signing. That's not a good success rate in terms of purchases

we actually did play like his Dutch team at the World Cup - Spain match aside Holland really weren't that good a side at that competition and their game against Costa Rica was reminiscent of our FA cup match against Sheffield United - I think like this thread theres a lot of revisionism about Van Gaal

He did give young players a chance and credit to him for that - but you are being far far too kind when you talk about a 'rushed and stressful environment'.

He arrived late in that first window, Herrera and Shaw were done deals whilst he was in Brazil with Holland. We panicked then in the last week and signed ADM and Falcao, of which no one complained at the time. I believe ADM is on the board more so than LVG myself.

Funny, I've just posted his world cup games ago and I honestly don't recall them being boring much bar the Argentina game. Costa Rica was very enjoyable as 0-0 games go and it was end to end and Holland should of scored a few but for the keeper and woodwork.

Their 3 group games were superb, Spain, Australia and Chile. Thoroughly enjoyed watching them and was actually rooting for them after those performances. They smashed Brazil in the 3rd place play off too then.

 

[el3mel]

They scored 10 goals in the opening 3 group games OK 5 of them was against Spain. That's a world cup classic! Will always be remembered.

They then had a cracking game against the Ozzies ending 3-2 and was end to end stuff. There was 24 shots, 11 of which were on target! Cahill and RVP both scoring great goals
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/25285148

Their final game having already qualified was an OK watch as well from what I recall. Over 20 shots and 5 on target again.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/25285270

Holland vs Mexico - I recall watching it at the in-laws house at a BBQ, wasn't quite as good as the opening 3 games.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/27961190

Costa Rica - As 0-0 games go, it was very entertaining. End to end stuff and had that underdog feel to it. Remember it well and Holland were unlucky not score at least 3.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/28069208

Argentina - Woeful game.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/28122293

I missed the 3rd placed final game against Brazil so no idea, but scoring 3 goals against a decent Brazilian side? Couldn't of been all bad.

I don't for the life of me remember them being boring at all and the evidence shows otherwise and that was his most recent team prior to taking over at United.

I watched all of them and all the KO games were tedious to watch, but I told myself it's just cup games + the earlier Spain game was great so hopefully it'll be fine and just performance for cup games, but turned out not.

His United was pretty similar to that Netherlands side. He left one man with attacking freedom "Martial/Robben" while the rest of the team was restricted to his boring possession based style. He also did a similar thing with Bayern with focusing the attacking freedom on one player "Robben" which lead to him losing the CL final.

He has a typical pattern in building his team and what happened to United wasn't a one off.

 

[Keefy18]

I watched all of them and all the KO games were tedious to watch, but I told myself it's just cup games + the earlier Spain game was great so hopefully it'll be fine and just performance for cup games, but turned out not.

His United was pretty similar to that Netherlands side. He left one man with attacking freedom "Martial/Robben" while the rest of the team was restricted to his boring possession based style. He also did a similar thing with Bayern with focusing the attacking freedom on one player "Robben" which lead to him losing the CL final.

He has a typical pattern in building his team and what happened to United wasn't a one off.

You must be nay-on impossible to please so. They created chances for fun and the links show that. The only game really where they created sod all was Argentina in reality. Their games had more goals in them than any other side overall I think, fair enough the opener played a big part in that but goals all count. They managed to score 3 goals on two more occasions after that (Australia & Brazil).

I mean, I can understand folks being annoyed with his United team and struggling for shots on target. Look at the stats in the links I posted above, they were getting 20 shots or more in a few of those games.

 

[beedoubleyou]

De Gea is no good, Van Gaal was taking us somewhere and we never should have sold Daley Blind?

Wow.

I think a large fish may have been leaped over today.

 

[20solskjaer]

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?

Nothing like the same thing it was dressed up like that to save face, pep replaced a liability with bravo, the same legend is now 2nd/3rd choice at burnley and about 5th choice for england

 

[el3mel]

You must be nay-on impossible to please so. They created chances for fun and the links show that. The only game really where they created sod all was Argentina in reality. Their games had more goals in them than any other side overall I think, fair enough the opener played a big part in that but goals all count. They managed to score 3 goals on two more occasions after that (Australia & Brazil).

I mean, I can understand folks being annoyed with his United team and struggling for shots on target. Look at the stats in the links I posted above, they were getting 20 shots or more in a few of those games.

I watched the games myself though. I was extremely pleased after their Spain match earlier and loved his subs against Mexico and Costa Rica but that's about it. Was never pleased with their football for the rest of the tournament and looked tedious to me but as I said, though it was just cup games performance and different things will happen in the league. Also as I replied on another poster, tbf he started attacking with us till he got hit with his Leicester and reverted back to being the original coward he was.

 

[nore1975]

LVG grasped the nettle of overhauling the United squad. Problem was his signings were mainly poor Shaw, Martial and Romero aside. Zaha and Evans aside couldn’t argue with those he moved on.

 

[buckooo1978]

De Gea is no good, Van Gaal was taking us somewhere and we never should have sold Daley Blind?

Wow.

I think a large fish may have been leaped over today.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

That Leicester game changed him for the worse.

We became allergic to scoring goals under him.

Another has-been manager like Jose.

 

[Neil_Buchanan]

I liked him despite the fact he let Phil Jones take corners.

 

[Kaglish10]

I watched all their matches in the World Cup for obvious reasons and beside Spain they were tedious to watch. I hoped at this time it's just because it was a cup games and all and tbf he started attacking with us after the transfers joined but once we lost to Leicester he reverted back to the original coward he was.

Nothing wrong about LVG's career. He was a great manager and the man to be hired at one point but by the time he reached United he had become a terrible and past it manager.

That was Bayern statement when they sacked him (and by that time he was 4th in the league which wasn't qualifying for CL at this time, the interim manager salvaged 3rd and CL qualification later on) :

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.

 

[Aloysius's Back 3]

Love u @Kaglish10
Wish you were there back in the day of Santiago Kinderbueno

 

[dirkey]

Honestly? Who cares about his Dutch team. The fact of the matter is, he did a brutal job at United. Served up appalling football, made terrible signings and had us going backwards by the end of his tenure. The way he was sacked was not handled well at all, but he absolutely, 100% had to go.

Christ, we've probably already had more shots on target in Ole's tenure than we did in duration of Louis.

 

[Saffron]

Genuinely don’t understand how anyone can have a hard-on for Van Gaal and attempt to justify his United failures unless you’re Dutch or Dumb.

What’s next, a revisionist defense of Moyes?

 

[Web of Bissaka]

His comment about Ole playing defensive football and not the United way is so BS.

“But the way Manchester United are playing now is not the way Ferguson played. It is defensive, counter-attacking football. If you like it, you like it.

“If you think it is more exciting than my boring attacking, OK. But it is not my truth.

Merely emphasizing the point he know shit nothing about United and our football. So clear he didn't really watch the United under Ferguson.

 

[Lentwood]

This is such a bad post. For many reasons but probably most of all because - in this very season - we've seen the most concrete evidence possible that getting the right manager on board can get much better results out of the same bunch of players. How the hell can anyone watch the turnaround on Ole and conclude "meh, makes no difference who's in charge.." Absolute fecking madness.

Where do I say it makes no difference? Its makes SOME difference, just not very much. Basically in my opinion you could have picked any four managers at random from the current top eight teams in each major European league and the overall results would not have been much different

My point about the Utd managers since SAF has always been the same....of course you can critique the managers but there are probably ten other factors at play that make their job almost impossible

Its also a bit bizarre you choose to highlight what has happened since Jose left as evidence that it really IS the manager at fault since this last month or so has been arguably as bad as any period under LvG or Jose in terms of results and performances

I'd say blaming our managers currently and replacing one for another is like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic as it sunk into the Atlantic

 

[Sylar]

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.

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.