Van Gaal

[Untd55]

.

 

[Kostur]

Anyone remember 'Zlatan coming in will help Rashford', 'sanchez coming in will help martial'

These Jose fans were just craving for success because their love for United comes from their success than their methods

Funny thing is - they will ask you where LVG's foundations went when its suited to them then tell you Jose won a minor treble in his first season following LVG & that's why Jose was better

Funny how players in this minor treble like Blind & Martial got less and less important and the progress as the team got worse and worse.

Jose was the epitomy of what's wrong with this club looking for quick successes without attempting to shape the club for long term success. Whilst I'm not pretending LVG is the main man for this long term plan but to consider him not better than Jose at it is simply wrong.

Now Ole will start rebuilding a long term plan something that blends more with LVG than Jose any day of the week.

 

[Aloysius's Back 3]

 

[Untd55]

Anyone remember 'Zlatan coming in will help Rashford', 'sanchez coming in will help martial'

These Jose fans were just craving for success because their love for United comes from their success than their methods

Funny thing is - they will ask you where LVG's foundations went when its suited to them then tell you Jose won a minor treble in his first season following LVG & that's why Jose was better

Funny how players in this minor treble like Blind & Martial got less and less important and the progress as the team got worse and worse.

Jose was the epitomy of what's wrong with this club looking for quick successes without attempting to shape the club for long term success. Whilst I'm not pretending LVG is the main man for this long term plan but to consider him not better than Jose at it is simply wrong.

Now Ole will start rebuilding a long term plan something that blends more with LVG than Jose any day of the week.

We scored 49 goals in the whole season. Not one of the players in Van Gaal's last season managed to reach 10 goals. Did you really think Mourinho didn't need to sign a striker? A striker who scored 30 goals.

Since when was Blind amazing for us? Van Gaal relegated him to a centre back. As a centre back, he was constantly skinned game after game. Let us not revise things just because he has been performing well for Ajax.

We finished second under Mourinho, a position Van Gaal never even got close to in a far weaker league. There is no doubt Mourinho was better than Van Gaal.

 

[Aloysius's Back 3]

We scored 49 goals in the whole season. Not one of the players in Van Gaal's last season managed to reach 10 goals. Did you really think Mourinho didn't need to sign a striker? A striker who scored 30 goals.

Since when was Blind amazing for us? Van Gaal relegated him to a centre back. As a centre back, he was constantly skinned game after game. Let us not revise things just because he has been performing well for Ajax.

We finished second under Mourinho, a position Van Gaal never even got close to in a far weaker league. There is no doubt Mourinho was better than Van Gaal.

And this is why there is no need to reply Blind being skinned game after game is again being delusional.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed Jose mate.

The funniest fact is how alot of the fans like you were dying for Jose Mourinho after LVG. Yet we told you how much of a mistake Woodward was making to go from a manager who built around possession football to change to a manger that built around a bus stop.

If we had a possession based manager - the next manager needs to atleast have some desire to have that a part of his gameplay. Who did Woodward go for? A manager that gave possession freely back to the opposition on purpose


These fans suddenly realise this and blame Woodward for his mistakes but don't care about them all jumping and craving themselves that they had for Jose the final season LVG was in charge .

Why should I listen to people who are ultimately the same as Woodward

 

[Sir Scott McToMinay]

Interesting discussion, perhaps some people forgot what kind of football we played under him, talk about foundations, anfield, minced pie, philosophy, my captain shall always play all you want, but remember, remember that the football was feckin unwatchable.

It got to the point where I literally couldn’t watch the games and just checked livescore, “ah, another 0-0 at OT , standard”.
Remember how shite he was in Europe, Moyes did miles better than him and got out of a far stronger group, remember “Schmidfield”, remember his hideous transfer record.

He is a cool chap but when the football is this bad, and it was far far worse than anything we played under Moyes, and even worse than the worst we’ve played under Jose, it was literally just us keeping possession in our own half and that is all, anything else doesn’t matter, if you can’t watch your team play then any achievements he did have with us become meaningless.

 

[dirkey]

And this is why there is no need to reply Blind being skinned game after game is again being delusional.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed Jose mate.

The funniest fact is how alot of the fans like you were dying for Jose Mourinho after LVG. Yet we told you how much of a mistake Woodward was making to go from a manager who built around possession football to change to a manger that built around a bus stop.

If we had a possession based manager - the next manager needs to atleast have some desire to have that a part of his gameplay. Who did Woodward go for? A manager that gave possession freely back to the opposition on purpose


These fans suddenly realise this and blame Woodward for his mistakes but don't care about them all jumping and craving themselves that they had for Jose the final season LVG was in charge .

Why should I listen to people who are ultimately the same as Woodward

Interesting. You joined the caf on 2018,but told us Woodward was making a mistake before you joined? That's impressive.

 

[Paul_Scholes18]

It is crazy how we can talk up someone doing so badly. We got so lucky in the cup too with easy draws and some lucky goals.

LVG totally failed with pretty much everything from the start. His ideas didn't work at all even if he implemented them. Mourinho on the other hand won us some titles and we played well in spells. His personality fecked everything up in the end though and he didn't really know how to develop the side.

 

[Untd55]

And this is why there is no need to reply Blind being skinned game after game is again being delusional.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed Jose mate.

The funniest fact is how alot of the fans like you were dying for Jose Mourinho after LVG. Yet we told you how much of a mistake Woodward was making to go from a manager who built around possession football to change to a manger that built around a bus stop.

If we had a possession based manager - the next manager needs to atleast have some desire to have that a part of his gameplay. Who did Woodward go for? A manager that gave possession freely back to the opposition on purpose


These fans suddenly realise this and blame Woodward for his mistakes but don't care about them all jumping and craving themselves that they had for Jose the final season LVG was in charge .

Why should I listen to people who are ultimately the same as Woodward

You are jumping from one conversation to another. I was talking about comparing Van Gaal and Mourinho, but now you bring in Woodward. Why? What has that got to do with the conversation over which one had the better period here?

Anyway, I never said I enjoyed Mourinho's time here; he was just clearly better than Van Gaal. I deal in facts - I am not a blind fan of anyone.

 

[Keefy18]

Blind got switched from midfield to LB then CB and didn't play for midfield again so it was a signing wasted from midfield.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong...your wrong, your wrong *In Dr Cox voice*

Debut season - 2014/15.
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/dal...verein=985&liga=&wettbewerb=&pos=&trainer_id=
Defensive Midfield - 20 games
Left Back - 6 games
Centre back - 2 games

He performed well in those games at DMF he was in the running for our POTY.

Bastian played only 18 matches in the league and Morgan failed miserably. Not to mention even the only good one

I've already said these 2 were failures, your point? Thanks for agreeing....

Herrera, was benched by LVG because he doesn't "retain possession".

He played 4 Premier league game less for LVG than Jose The way you are posting you would swear he was completely in the wilderness never to be seen again. But he was seen again and won our POTY the next season.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ander_Herrera#Career_statistics

I didn't say LVG didn't attempt a rebuilt. He attempted and failed, took a crap team who collected 66 points, filled with aging players and deadwood and left a crap team who collected 64 points, filled with crap players and deadwood.

The team he left needed a rebuild again which was ridiculous considering he was the one hired to do it, that he bought 11 players and spent 250m and his reign ended with all the positions in terrible state and the team collecting as much points as Moyes did while scoring far less goals.

Mourinho or whoever was going to get appointed had a massive task on his hands to deal with the mess LVG left behind. The fact Mourinho failed in his last season didn't change anything.

And his best XI was shite.

Mess? Yeah what a shit house it was with the players buzzing on the back of winning the FA Cup. Tied with 4th on points...

LVG took over a side 22 points from champions... LVG cut that gap down in both seasons...

Only for Jose to see that gap open up again to 24 points!!!!!

• No progress except leaving us with a functioning CB pairing that done better than Jose's CB pairings (which were never settled on as he changed them every single game). A functioning Left back in Shaw and 2 youth players in TFM & Varela who could play RB / CB and RB respectively.
• Herrera who won POTY.
• He bought Chong who is now part of Ole's plans it seems going forward.... another I forgot about.
• Martial who won a FIFA world award
• Rashford one of Europes best young forwards on FA Cup final day / day of sacking.
• With support from Tuanzebe, Memphis, Romero and Rojo.

Not LVG's fault Jose undone all his hard work with the team and youth.

Our defense with settled with a combo that needed midfield to retain possession all the time in our own field and GK saving their arses.

And yet the GK saved our asses more with Jose managing the team..?

I've provided you with performance data that shows Blind / Smalling performed very well and your reply with this nonsense?

Shaw was settled as our main LB, because he played the first five games in the second season, even though he wasn't even a permanent starter in first season and Blind was our main LB during our best period under LVG when we defeated City, Pool and Spurs.

He broke his leg. Did you expect him to play with a broken leg? I suppose the leg break was LVG's fault too yeah?

Oh and Season one he had numerous injuries also! https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/luke-shaw/verletzungen/spieler/183288

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luke_Shaw#Career_statistics

http://www.mufcinfo.com/manupag/res...nent_nationality=&Home_Away_neutral=&Manager=

As per the link above, Shaw missed 18 games of his first season here and played 20... In the 2014-15 season, we played a total of 44 games.... So Shaw LITERALLY was injured for half of them. It wasn't that LVG decided simply not to play him out of some choice, he was injured.

So arguably there was a whopping 6 games where LVG could of picked him but didn't... I mean what a b*stard right. Clearly LVG had no plans for him as you state right?

Our attack was settled with a paste it Rooney who got shifted to midfield to cover his deficiencies, 2 inconsistent youngsters and a slow as feck number 10 playing on the right wing.

Rooney was a problem he inherited. Again educate yourself son! He was stuck with him on a huge 5 year deal that the club paid €16m for!

I asked Roboc what his choice would of been in handling Rooney, I'll ask you the same. How do you handle the Rooney problem?

29 year old fading fast on a whopper new deal for 5 years. Do you play him? Let him Rot and incur the anger of your boss (Woodward) and fans or sell him (basically impossible)?

For the last time it's expected for our defense and GK to work more under Mourinho because he doesn't favor possession and depends on inviting teams to attack so he can counter. That's not the point, do you even read ?

Whoa hold up so now you are actually agreeing with me? I stated time and time again that our GK was worked more under Jose because of his shite tactics, you denied this repeatedly up to this very comment and now... you state that the GK does in fact work more. #backtracking

The point that it clearly wasn't, seeing that once the possession retention style LVG applied to protect them and decrease the number of shots was removed, they got exposed badly, which frankly all your stats prove, with the number of saves and number of games we got behind increased.

NO! The point being a manager at the top level shouldn't be playing these shite tactics ffs. A club of our reputation, status and obvious resources should not be conceding possession and opting for reactionary style football.

ALL Man United sides should be confident and capable of retaining possession. Any kind of deviation from this is completely and utterly unacceptable for a club of United's stature.

But LVG left a fragile defense that needed too much protection from midfield and GK to work.

A fragile defense of Smalling (very good and capable CB), Blind (POTY Contender and now CL Semi Finalist with Ajax) and very good Shaw (one of the leagues best LB's)... Give your head a wobble.

What is that related to him signing him for midfield and ending up not playing him there at all ?

What does it matter? He performed for him at DMF AND CB! Some players are versatile, Look at John O Shea.

Sure its not like Blind has gone on to be a superb CB or anything is it, not like he can make it to Europes elite competition to a semi final or anything as a CB is it... Oh wait, he just has.

No manager gets all the transfer right but he got almost all of them wrong in midfield and attack bar 1 while we clearly needed an upgrade there which left both in a terrible state when it shouldn't be after 4 midfield signings and 3 forward signings.

Reality is he made a huge amount of changes, some right and some wrong. With the kind of overhaul needed and he tried to do there was going to be mistakes. The more changes you make the more likely you are to have mistakes.

Making an attempt at rebuilding.

And all these are facts supported by real numbers, not by nonsense arguments.

You've just said above no manager gets is 100% spot on to then go on a ridiculous hate filled rant that completely and utterly states LVG done zero here. You Sir are an idiot.

As for your question, no he won't be fully responsible for it because he was hired mid season and was supposed to be an interim manager.

NEXT SEASON! Not this... NEXT SEASON... You know when he's had a full season in charge... So no, NOT from December... From August 2019... Through to May 2020....

If Ole doesn't get top 4, I bet you'll be the same kind of instant gratification wanker our fan base is synonymous these days.

So I get from this point he was really favoring Will Keane and wanting to play him ahead of Rashford because he was more senior figure, as he had no plans for Rashford at all otherwise the big guy wouldn't have returned Keane from the loan and would have simply pushed Rashford forward in selection behind Rooney and Martial to have a chance when both out, instead of adding yet another player that would have kept Rashford away from selection and if Keane had never been injured he would have probably never heard of Rashford.

Keane was next in line at a chance, he got it deservedly and he got injured. Shit happens... Next in line was Rashford. It's not rocket science seriously.

Keane had more senior playing time than Rashford, so of course it made sense to have him on the cusp of playing time in the senior side. In the mean time he introduced Rashford to the senior team by involving him in training sessions and had him as part of the squad vs Watford.

Feck me seriously this is boring man having to go into such extensive detail about things that are simply common sense for a football managers perspective.

Is this part supposed to shite on LVG for failing to use the players he signed ? Do you even realize the guy bought Depay and benched him for most of the season, couldn't deal with him and didn't even know what his best position is despite him playing under him with national team at World Cup 1 year prior to LVG signing him ?

But you're talking about Depay ripping it apart now away from United, even though his attitude still sucks as much as it was at United, so looks like LVG was clueless in using the players he signed even those who were under him previously. Maybe if he was able to use his players well Depay would have "ripped" it at United under LVG too ?

Here we go again..... Want to join in on the song this time...

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong...Your wrong, your wrong... https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/mem...15&verein=&liga=&wettbewerb=&pos=&trainer_id=

So, Debut season with 46 appearances, 37 of which was on the LW... But you round this off by saying my point goes against me?

Varela.

I don't even believe yourself when you mention the likes of Varela and TFM. The hardest brainwashed LVG fans won't say such things.

Varela played only 11 matches this season. He's now playing in Denmark.

Yep, he performed well for us in his apps. What's the issue?

Sorry he's not a galactico to your liking, maybe just stick with FIFA to get your jollies off kid.

Mourinho wasn't a success but he definitely performed better than the dross LVG served in his 2 seasons. Your point is a nonsense way to look at it. We finished higher in the league in Mourinho second season and the 81 points we gathered in his second season and left us 19 points away from the title, was believe it or not, the same number of points Leicester won the league with while LVG was here which shows how crap the league LVG was managing in was and yet still failed to get 4th. More points, more goals, more trophies, better signings. I guess someone else mentioned this in another discussion on you in this thread.

The only position that matters in the league in reality is 1st.

Higher in the league, but 24...YES 24 Feckin points off City. What use was that? Did it matter if it was 2nd, 3rd or 4th being that far behind. LVG's worst season was 5th and 15pts off the Champions.

Jose's closest rival saw him open up nearly double the lead on him. This happened after Jose spent double what LVG did and started off in a far better position than LVG did. Again... LVG took over 7th place United 22 PTS from champions, having to do a complete rebuild of an ageing, injury prone side.. Jose took over a team that tied with 4th on points on the day we won our first trophy post Ferguson that was 15pts from champions.

Jose in a nutshell took over a United team far healthier than LVG did... BUT... Our rivals opened up a lead nearly double what LVG left us with.

Doesn't matter how many managers did it, it's still shite to play a slow as feck number 10 on the flank.

Sorry, We should only have 24 Messi's in our team according to clowns like you.

Martial started as striker.

He then switched him to LW this season from the first half because he fell out with Depay and was clueless how to use him so benched him and played Martial in his position as he didn't see other options.

So now your actually arguing against Transfermarkt's data.. Transfermarkt take their data from Opta. Talk about an unhealthy obsession with having to be right.

Take your issue up with them.

At the end Rashford was discovered as a lucky hit and both Rooney and Martial were both injured so he played Rashford up top and put Depay again on the left.

Seriously cop yourself on ffs. Was Muller lucky? Xavi? Iniesta? LVG's entire career is one founded on believing in youth, but only would we find immature fools in our supporter base summing up his career with youth as luck.

We watched the season you know. I don't need stats to tell you what happened.

Actually you do, but I'm not sure why I bother cause as above you are now saying the stats are also wrong and you are apparently right.

These companies are hired to analyze the games, most likely you are not. But you are now disputing them as well. Arrogant much? Take your issue up with them.

More balanced, tempo, creativity.

This attack scored a whole lot of fecking 49 goals in this league campaign. We were the second weakest attack in the top 10 after fecking Stock. All the rest scored more than us, the nearest team to us in terms of goals scored 59 goals!!

Sorry your Royal Highness that it didn't hit Peak Messi & Ronaldo levels instantaneously. Again, proving my point you expect instant results with zero excuses. You'll be on here abusing Ole in no time and calling for his head no doubt.

LVG was throwing random youth left, right and center in every position even the terrible ones waiting for any lucky hit to get praised for. From the loads of youth he promoted only one succeeded. It's terrible approach with terrible results. The rest of youngsters he promoted completely disappeared during and after he left.

Ole is promoting the well known good talents from academy and playing them on needed instead of throwing them randomly.

The difference is clear. You're just brainwashed by LVG.

We won back to back League titles with the u23 side during LVG's tenure here.

https://www.worldfootball.net/winner/eng-u23-premier-league-div-1/

This is the team that won the 2014/15 league title... Almost every single one of the players LVG debuted was involved in that title win! How in the feck is is "Pot luck" to pick players that were successful at youth level into your senior side?

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/manchester-united-u21/startseite/verein/9251/saison_id/2014

Thorpe, Blackett, Reece James, Love, TFM, Janko, McNair, Weir, Periera, Lingard, Keane & Wilson ALL debuted by LVG after winning this title. That's 12 of his 15 debuts right there to YTS players.

I don't want to come across as arrogant at all but please, please for the love of feckin god...Do your homework and educate yourself before posting your own personal sentiments of hatred towards LVG and try actually post something that is true.

Anyway don't worry, this is my last post on such terrible argument. Definitely one of my worst discussions here.

The feeling is more than mutual trust me, there should be a block button or better yet admin should be looking at members like you and banning them for the utter crap they post. It's childish, petulant and you expect instant results from players to be on peak Messi levels or they are shite in your mind and if the manager isn't winning the league after 2 years then they should be sacked. Clowns like you would of called for Fergusons head after a few months. Sorry to be the one to tell you this but real football isn't like FIFA, where you get your knowledge from.

The worst is your comments about Luck with youth..Which I notice you've completely ignored cause you know I am spot on with What a pathetic summary of a great managers career.. luck. My god.

I've literally spent my entire day posting links providing factual evidence proving your points wrong, all you've done is post your own personal hatred of the man.

I've actually posted so many links educating you I should in fact be charging you schooling fees at this point. It's embarrassing for you!

Adios.

 

[Woeisme]

THe worst thing about Van Gaal never was Van Gaal. It was always the swarm of idiots on here and twitter that would act like they'd been brainwashed by him. Resorting to just completely making things up and then trying to give Van Gaal credit for them. Like you just have with the De Gea thing. Honestly he could have played Rooney in goal and you'd have found a way to spin it into this thread as being a piece of tactical genius, rather than just calling it for the stupidity it would have been.

This. Thank you.

It actually causes me physical discomfort to see a LVG thread up and running again. Unfortunately, I will never forget LVG. If only I could

 

[Aloysius's Back 3]

Interesting. You joined the caf on 2018,but told us Woodward was making a mistake before you joined? That's impressive.

Yes iv not had other accounts you are so intelligent

 

[dirkey]

Yes iv not had other accounts you are so intelligent

Why change? Banned for talking rubbish?

 

[Sylar]

People are Still trying to play up the failures of a man who was more bad for our club than good.

And using another managers failures to try and make a better case for another failure who played some of the worst football that has been seen at old Trafford. Astounding

Lvg was a failure and didn't lay any foundations. And no he didn't deserve a third season much like Jose didn't deserve to finish the third seasons
But comparing the two full seasons of lvg and Jose, Jose was better. Lvg should have gone around that December time in his second season
Jose should have gone after Sevilla match

 

[tombombadil]

It's shocking that there are people now trying to rewrite history and pretend the LvG era was anything other than dire.

Even now we see people writing page after page of rubbish trying to twist a square peg into a round hole.

The fact is, LvG's time was poor just like Moyes time was poor. Of all the managers we've had so far, Jose comes closest to SAF. Trying to pretend JM era was shit while LvG era was good is just plain old lying.

Maybe LvG needed more time. Or maybe his system was simply never going to work in the premier league. Nobody knows. The fact is, although he managed to sort out the defence and the possession, he failed to sort out the goal scoring. Because of that, the performances and results were poor so he couldn't buy himself more time and he was sacked as a result.

 

[Aloysius's Back 3]

Whether it's useful or not - we used to go to every game with the ball at our feet.

We would concentrate on Passing, Positioning and Pressing; the 3 P's of Van Gaal.

We seemed like our football was over simplified but was an exaggeration of the lack of technical and creative qualities within the team and its players.

He made arguably some of the worst transfers United have ever seen - yet we were at the time one of the first clubs that had a possible plan to build up on.

What we needed was a manager to make up for Van Gaal over simplified mistakes & his rubbish players by concentrating on his positives - possession, positioning and pressing that were done towards the end of his tenure with a bunch of youngsters.

Going from LVG to Jose was one of the worst decisions I have ever seen - a complete different way of playing football where we would do none of the 3 P's whilst the rest of the clubs went on to improve in these aspects than we did.

Ole after LVG would have been better for us than Jose after LVG and Ole after Jose.

We sit here now with team upon team with a philosophy & us now pretending like we never had one.

 

[Sir Scott McToMinay]

Whether it's useful or not - we used to go to every game with the ball at our feet.

We would concentrate on Passing, Positioning and Pressing; the 3 P's of Van Gaal.

We seemed like our football was over simplified but was an exaggeration of the lack of technical and creative qualities within the team and its players.

He made arguably some of the worst transfers United have ever seen - yet we were at the time one of the first clubs that had a possible plan to build up on.

What we needed was a manager to make up for Van Gaal over simplified mistakes & his rubbish players by concentrating on his positives - possession, positioning and pressing that were done towards the end of his tenure with a bunch of youngsters.

Going from LVG to Jose was one of the worst decisions I have ever seen - a complete different way of playing football where we would do none of the 3 P's whilst the rest of the clubs went on to improve in these aspects than we did.

Ole after LVG would have been better for us than Jose after LVG and Ole after Jose.

We sit here now with team upon team with a philosophy & us now pretending like we never had one.

We used to press under LvG?
I guess I’ve missed it, probably fallen asleep watching us play “possession football” in our half for literally the entire
match.
It was by far the worst and most conservative football I’ve ever seen in the PL from a top 6 team, it was a joke.
Should’ve never been hired in the first place.

 

[Aloysius's Back 3]

We used to press under LvG?
I guess I’ve missed it, probably fallen asleep watching us play “possession football” in our half for literally the entire
match.
It was by far the worst and most conservative football I’ve ever seen in the PL from a top 6 team, it was a joke.
Should’ve never been hired in the first place.

That's fair. Just another supporter that was begging for Jose after LVG & then blames Woodward for the same decision.

Let me guess Ole's current football is better because we are exciting and getting thrashed. I really don't understand why a thread about van Gaal has people still coming in and talking about how boring he is - we got you and you got what you wanted.

Now some of us see football as a more tactical approach & ultimately - whether it was old or now - you can't say LVG didn't have any of it.

 

[Lentwood]

As I said over and over again at the time, we WERE making progress under LvG

What you CANNOT keep doing is chopping at changing managers. It takes time to implement a system and a style of play. You've got to remember that any manager coming in at Manchester United over the last 5/6 years have inherited a real mish-mash of good, bad, indifferent, young, old, tika-taka, hoofball merchants and therefore it was always going to take a few windows.

Every time we chop and change manager we actually set ourselves back a significant amount because the new bloke coming in will want almost an entire new squad because we've not had the structure at the top to ensure continuity of styles amongst management or players

 

[Dr. Dwayne]

Passing, positioning and pissing about more likely. LvG was sacked for a reason. His team played incredibly boring football, with little intent to put the ball in the net. Some like to think of this as tactically brilliant. It's not. Tactical brilliance is keeping the ball, cutting the other team to pieces and putting one in the net. LvGs United could not do this.

Hiring Jose wans't necessarily a mistake, but not backing him in the transfer market after giving him a new contract was. We all know what he's like and Jose blew up as expected, trying to burn down everything around him.

United fans want to be entertained. Keeping possession and winning at all costs like LvG and Jose are not what we want. We would rather lose as long as we get a few moments that get us on our feet. Ole ticks that box. After what we've had since SAF retired, most of us are pleased with just the basics.

 

[Aloysius's Back 3]

Passing, positioning and pissing about more likely. LvG was sacked for a reason. His team played incredibly boring football, with little intent to put the ball in the net. Some like to think of this as tactically brilliant. It's not. Tactical brilliance is keeping the ball, cutting the other team to pieces and putting one in the net. LvGs United could not do this.

Hiring Jose wans't necessarily a mistake, but not backing him in the transfer market after giving him a new contract was. We all know what he's like and Jose blew up as expected, trying to burn everything down around him.

United fans want to be entertained. Keeping possession and winning at all costs like LvG and Jose are not what we want. We would rather lose as long as we get a few moments that get us on our feet.

 

[Roboc7]

We used to press under LvG?
I guess I’ve missed it, probably fallen asleep watching us play “possession football” in our half for literally the entire
match.
It was by far the worst and most conservative football I’ve ever seen in the PL from a top 6 team, it was a joke.
Should’ve never been hired in the first place.

The problem is that a lot of people don’t understand how outdated LVG was, they don’t recognise that others have moved the game on. Part of reason his recruitment was poor is he didn’t understand what players need to be able to do now. It’s why he still thought Rooney in midfield was a good idea.

Whoever came in after him had to start again to rectify his poor tactics and recruitment. He was an odd choice at that stage in his career, sadly it was too late for him.

 

[el3mel]

Why is this thread up again ? I thought we were done with this ?

 

[Raw]

Totally agree that Jose after LVG was a huge mistake. Such polarising philosophies only destroyed the squad even further. At least under LVG I saw that we were building towards a certain style, it was utter dog shit to watch but with the right tweaks and transfers it could have been effective. There were some lovely glimpses of what we were capable of (Juanfield for instance), and it sucks that we destroyed all that work into possession football and went with cowardly tactics.

 

[tomaldinho1]

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


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

Conversely I think it's spot on.

We haven't really changed much since Mou left tactically, we take more risks but we are still predominately reliant on counter attacking. That's not a slight against Ole because he's come in mid way through a season and there's a limit to what you can affect.

Under SAF we didn't need to play defensively because there were far fewer 'elite' clubs in the PL and we were a dominant force with phenomenal players in every position. We then had more of Quieroz' influence come in when SAF realised the need for a more 'European style' as football was changing - we still counter attacked a lot (I'd say football was generally more unstructured and end to end when I think about the PL 5+ years ago anyway) but generally would control possession give how strong our midfield was. We very rarely do that anymore.

LVG is a bit of a nutter but he generally speaks the truth, no matter how blunt it is. His brand never really took hold here but he still won an FA cup despite the terrible football we ended up playing and we acted very poorly to sack him in the way we did.

 

[Dr. Dwayne]

He won more trophies than your boy. What?

 

[Pogue Mahone]

As I said over and over again at the time, we WERE making progress under LvG

What you CANNOT keep doing is chopping at changing managers. It takes time to implement a system and a style of play. You've got to remember that any manager coming in at Manchester United over the last 5/6 years have inherited a real mish-mash of good, bad, indifferent, young, old, tika-taka, hoofball merchants and therefore it was always going to take a few windows.

Every time we chop and change manager we actually set ourselves back a significant amount because the new bloke coming in will want almost an entire new squad because we've not had the structure at the top to ensure continuity of styles amongst management or players

Van Gaal got plenty of time and clearly implemented a new system and style of play.

Unfortunately it was a shit one.

 

[Aloysius's Back 3]

He won more trophies than your boy. What?

And that's the problem.

Woodward like the fans thought going from LVG a possession based manager to a manager of the complete opposite style was a good idea.

Now we have fans crying for some long term project and an understanding of the board of continuing one style of play. What's the problem? Why is it suddenly wanted now and not before?

Because ultimately Jose was some short term impact manager trying to cover gaps by winning a trophy during his 2 and a half year tenure.

A horrible choice after the manager we had. A possession based manager should have been improved by going after another possession based manager.

Horrible choice.

 

[Kaglish10]

The problem is that a lot of people don’t understand how outdated LVG was, they don’t recognise that others have moved the game on. Part of reason his recruitment was poor is he didn’t understand what players need to be able to do now. It’s why he still thought Rooney in midfield was a good idea.

Whoever came in after him had to start again to rectify his poor tactics and recruitment. He was an odd choice at that stage in his career, sadly it was too late for him.

Outdated LVG got ageing average Dutch team to the third place world cup final.

 

[Dr. Dwayne]

And that's the problem.

Woodward like the fans thought going from LVG a possession based manager to a manager of the complete opposite style was a good idea.

Now we have fans crying for some long term project and an understanding of the board of continuing one style of play. What's the problem? Why is it suddenly wanted now and not before?

Because ultimately Jose was some short term impact manager trying to cover gaps by winning a trophy during his 2 and a half year tenure.

A horrible choice after the manager we had. A possession based manager should have been improved by going after another possession based manager.

Horrible choice.

Maybe LvG was a horrible choice, too. Woodward seems to be good at those.

Both he and Mourinho were the wrong type of manager for United. They have their own style and attempted to stamp their mark on a behemoth club that isn't capable of changing over the course of an average managerial contract. Even Moyes made a similar mistake by trying to be his own man and bringing in his ridiculous backroom staff. Ole, at least, understands what the club is about and how we should play. That's why most of the fans are onside. Not saying any of them are shit managers. Moyes, LvG and Jose all have a history of reasonable and incredible success but all clearly failed here, in varying degrees.

 

[Aloysius's Back 3]

Outdated LVG got ageing average Dutch team to the third place world cup final.

We ended up that second season beating teams with players like CBj, TFM, Rashford, Martial, Lingard, Varela and more.

We started seeing a more composed long term team towards the end of that second season - but by that time alot of the fans had given up on him because they were blind folded in to thinking that United is this mass club that can scratch success off every season post SAF. On came their love for Jose & when he failed now alot of these fans are open minded to the fact that the club is not that great.

Even people here are questioning SAF's own tactical ability in his 20 year career and I'd it was just us having better players that would put in a shift.

And the funny thing is - people will be like oh LVG used CBj & Varela & TFM in his second season - but where are they now? Like these type of young players are conditioned video game robots who have an 'potential ability' to play football to their level where ever they want whenever they want.

Football doesn't work like that, plenty good players have failed at the lower Leagues just to come up in to the PL and rip a new story up.

Fact is by the end of LVG season - United had its best defensive partnership, had unearthed a striker with the potential for a striking partnership, had some new fullbacks etc.

And yet these fans are still crying out about young as our RB delusional.

 

[Roboc7]

Outdated LVG got ageing average Dutch team to the third place world cup final.

Yes and that actually supports my point and is lack of understanding I am talking about. The coaching in international football is outdated. The top managers are at clubs, the managers at their peaks are also at clubs, it was perfect for LVG and he’d have been a great appointment for an international team.

 

[MoskvaRed]

A younger version of a methodical, root and branch manager like Van Gaal paired with a competent director of football/selection board is essentially what we need. Unfortunately he was past his sell by date at United, his choice of players was generally awful and was supplemented by Ed’s Disneyland lucky dips like Falcao. But of the four types of post-Fergie manager (the random Scotsman, the professorial type, the win at all costs pragmatist and, sorry to say, the random ex-player), he was probably the closest to what we should be looking for.

 

[Johan07]

IMO LvGs biggest mistake was to cut down the size of the squad as much as he did. Its a fine idea to give youth a chance when there are injuries but he went overkill.
The PL today is a different animal than any other league and you need experience and depth in the squad. When we were hit with injuries we were exposed over a couple of games.
Otherwise I dont get some comments in this thread. We did not press the ball under LvG? Of course we did, more than under any other manager we have had lately and then I am including the Sir Alex/Queiroz era. We also stood way higher up with our back four, especially compared to Mourinho.
His ventures into the transfer market was not a success though and that together with cutting down the squad as much as he did are the two major reasons for his failure. As well as losing important parts of the dressing room his last season.

 

[Fredo]

Van Gaal's tenure was kind of mixed at United. He inherited pretty much the same squad of 2013 that already had our defense line/midfield lines close to retirement.

His recruitment wasn't extremely good Rojo, Darmian, Schweinsteiger, Schneiderlin, Falcao, Di Maria, Depay, Blind all failing and those were supposedly the replacements or the new shape of our defense and midfield, so without those working as they should, his job became even harder as those players were recruited during the same year if I remember correctly.

Add to that a declining Rooney and RvP and you would not get a squad capable of pushing for the title.

Then came the famous game in the europa league where we fielded the youngsters because the squad was full of injuries, got to see Marcus Rashford burst into the scene. Him, Martial and Shaw are the only positive thing to happen to the club during that time.

Second season we were supposed to finish 4th and qualify for Champions League but we bottled it against West Ham, which killed our chances of qualifying and there was also the goal difference part with City, so that was our own doing.

So the guy basically made a shitload of signings and the critical ones that needed replacement (defense and midfield) failed miserably so that's down on him and his methods. He inherited an aging squad and he was charged of rebuilding and getting players that adapt to his philosophy and look what happened.

 

[Canagel]

Totally agree that Jose after LVG was a huge mistake. Such polarising philosophies only destroyed the squad even further. At least under LVG I saw that we were building towards a certain style, it was utter dog shit to watch but with the right tweaks and transfers it could have been effective. There were some lovely glimpses of what we were capable of (Juanfield for instance), and it sucks that we destroyed all that work into possession football and went with cowardly tactics.

and more passes is being completed in the league compared with 10 years ago. LvG possession style is what we needed even if he had been washed up himself. The club unfortunately panicked because they had seen guardiola coming to City and hurried to take another washed up coach like mourinho only this time we will have to tear everything down and start from scratch. It was certainly a a bigger backward step than hiring LVG because we will never have modernized a possession style with anti possession manager.

This post is from ajax supporter in response to another post that had suggested we should take their current managerial and technical directing set up instead of the players to replicate the system here:

You tried that with LvG. Then you dumped him before giving him a chance to completely reformat the youth system and get the main team used to a high discipline, technical possession game. Instead, you had a bunch of veteran players not used to the system LvG had in mind.

IMO, they understood the basic idea of passing and ball possession to some degree, enough to execute it on a basic level. But they did not quite get the goal of the passing, nor had the experience with it to be creative with and exploit the triangles, or the confidence to do this playing forward. Then you get these side to side passes for possession with no initiative or goal, which some of the rebuilding teams of Frank de Boer also had.

Basically, as it wasn't routine for them, it takes concentration and effort to pull off. If there's not enough confidence, they just keep doing the easiest pass, which often is side and backwards, playing it safe. One of the hardest things to achieve is getting players to do this while playing forward.



Thing is, with Ajax, the core philosophy is what matters, not star players. Ajax can't afford to rely on one single player anyway, because that player will be gone the next year given the current financial situation in international football.

Scouting for youthful talents is extremely important, certainly. But Ajax' star players are trained with the offensive footbal philosophy of the club. Sculpting the talents to perfection in both individual quality and disciplined teamplay is where the focus lies, so that each player knows their job in the system and plays there with confidence in any Ajax team and virtually anyone can get into a position to score. Hence why there's been years where there was no one top scorer, but four or five spread between midfield and strikers.

Since everyone is taught and grew up with the same system throughout the youth academy, you can relatively easily replace players with younger players once sold off. As they all play roughly the same due to be trained around positions, they can still find one another quite easily because they know what's expected of them and what to expect fellow players.

When you buy a team together for millions upon millions, you don't buy a system to go with them, with some exceptions aside due to smart player purchasing, you have to train them to work together as a team and fine tune them (while many of these players will be veteran diva's, too big ego for teamwork).

That's where Ajax' advantage lies.

 

[Kaglish10]

Yes and that actually supports my point and is lack of understanding I am talking about. The coaching in international football is outdated. The top managers are at clubs, the managers at their peaks are also at clubs, it was perfect for LVG and he’d have been a great appointment for an international team.

He broke Ajax and PSV dominance in the Dutch league with his AZ Alkmaar team.

The problem with Van Gaal while he was here, was his average team and he did get plenty out of the said average team. Can you imagine having a 3-man midfield of ageing slow Carrick, 'past it' sluggish Rooney and a lethargic Fellaini? Capped with an unproven inexperienced young talents, such as an attacking trio of Rashford, Martial and Lingard in attacks? Did you think Mourinho would have had anything to do with such team, let alone achieve something with them? Yet Van Gaal won the FA cup with them and got us fighting for the top four till the last day and we only lost out on goal difference. Hence, I don't think he's an outdated coach.

Like I have always stated that while he could be blamed for his poor signing eventhough most of his signings were punts taken in however, he did his best with the team. Looking back, I think he's a coach who's suitable for a club that has great pool of talented young players that he could easily pluck into his team like he did at Ajax and AZ Alkmaar (patience would also be required in this case) or a national team with a pool of plethora of talents from which he could choose his team. These options are far better than allowing him to dip into the transfer market.

I won't really say he's poor in the transfer market because he was the one who identified Mane, Martial, Blind however I think he hates spending over the top on players hence his love for taking punts on decent players such as Rojo, Darmain, Blind, ageing Schweinsteiger etc. I saw his Bayern squad and I couldn't wrap my head around the lot of players he had. Players such as Altintop, Dimechelis, Van buyten, 40yrs Van bommel, Tymoshchuks, Pranjic etc. I mean there was no way he could have archieved a lot with these players he had in his defence and midfield but rather than splash huge money on known quality players, he not only continued to persevere with these average old heads in his team but also, preferred to promote young players such as Kroos, Alaba, Badstuber, Muller etc than splash the cash. It's no wonder the first thing Bayern did after he left was to flush out all these average old heads. Of course, Van Gaal would know the players he had in his defence weren't good enough and I doubt they cost much in the first place but he preferred them than spend the cash. He's always said that he doesn't like spending huge on players.

I really don't think he was the one that signed Di Maria because that's not his kind of signings. He didn't sign Herrera and Shaw too.

 

[Paul_Scholes18]

If we do bad now people come on and claim we miss LVG and his football. If we had done well people would be talking about how his foundation would have been the key to our sucess.

Don't know how he has managed to get such a cult following him. The way his mind worked was totally crazy and he totally failed here.
He had so much luck though which is funny with all the cup draws. (still managed to get destroyed by MK Dons and got knocked out of one of the easist champions league groups we have had) It is like GOD enjoy helping him out or something and that gave us an Fa cup at least. His best teams and formations came as a result of injuries rather than him actually trying them based on a plan/performances.

 

[Aloysius's Back 3]

If we do bad now people come on and claim we miss LVG and his football. If we had done well people would be talking about how his foundation would have been the key to our sucess.

Don't know how he has managed to get such a cult following him. The way his mind worked was totally crazy and he totally failed here.
He had so much luck though which is funny with all the cup draws. (still managed to get destroyed by MK Dons and got knocked out of one of the easist champions league groups we have had) It is like GOD enjoy helping him out or something and that gave us an Fa cup at least. His best teams and formations came as a result of injuries rather than him actually trying them based on a plan/performances.

Ultimately because no one in the world said that you view of football is the right and the only way either.

 

[redshaw]

I do remember LVG saying something along the lines of wanting a different keeper over De Gea very early on but then come to accept De Gea wasn't going anywhere.