Van Gaal

bond19821982

Last Man Standing champion 2019/20
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
10,366
Location
Nnc
Think he deserves much better from us. I know he was arrogant, ruthless and had his own way of doing things. But he really identified our problems.

DDG - he wanted to sell him and replace him with a ball playing keeper . In reality he was right, DDG is bloody brilliant at shot stopping but very average in distribution and passing.

High pressing and playing out from the back - this was back when people started talking about high pressing and playing out from the back..not many teams were doing it. He brought in blind at CB and made it work ( I slated him for not playing blind in midfield).

Midfield control - how we took control of the game and dominated the opponents. Game at Anfield was fecking brilliant and so many other games. Yes, i understand it was meaningless possession but that was probably due to quality of our players. Could have made it work with better players .

Identifying the talent - he wanted to sign Mane and we called him clueless for chosing mane ahead of Pedro . He was the one who tried Depay in the middle and that's his position now.

Seriously, he got so many things right and how I wish he had stayed and continued the project . While I understand Jose was a better choice that didn't help us in the long run either.

Some of the things we wish now was implemented by him long back. Just shows we need to be patient to implement something .

Anyone else think this way ?
 

Hugh Jass

Shave Dass
Joined
Apr 16, 2016
Messages
11,244
Injuries went against him. But the football was dire at times. I recall playing someone and Mata got a freekick and it was basically pass sideways in MF.

Having said that, i think we took a step backwards signing Mourinho given the two contrasting styles. IMO we should have let Van Gaal have his third year.

Some signings turned out to be poor as well like Morgan Schinderlin and Bastian.
 

Dirty Schwein

Has a 'Best of Britney Spears' album
Joined
Feb 6, 2012
Messages
31,676
Location
Miracle World
Supports
Luton Town
I see his positives but I also remember finding excuses to miss our games. That's how dull we were with his tactics.
 

20solskjaer

Full Member
Joined
Dec 7, 2005
Messages
3,440
DDG - he wanted to sell him and replace him with a ball playing keeper . In reality he was right, DDG is bloody brilliant at shot stopping but very average in distribution and passing.
He was right? Ive never got this fascination around having a ball playing keeper, his job is to stop the ball going in the net, he does that better than anyone in the world and i wouldnt swap him for anyone

Its a bit like saying you would prefer a 15 goal a season striker who can track back and defend really well over ronaldo
 

VeevaVee

The worst "V"
Scout
Joined
Jan 3, 2009
Messages
46,248
Location
Manchester
Sell DDG :lol:

Also LVG is a twat that never shuts up about us because he failed and can't accept it. We didn't dominate anything. Teams let us fanny about doing nothing then attacked us and looked immediately more threatening than we did for the previous hour. Better players would have made no difference in such a terrible system.
The whole philosophy thing was a product of his own ego and nothing more.
 

Hoof the ball

Full Member
Joined
Jan 16, 2008
Messages
12,187
Location
San Antonio, Texas.
Unfortunately, his approach to the game was tailor made for his Ajax side. One Champions League win and a CL Final the next season was an outstanding achievement that many have forgotten over the sands of time. He always needed the right players for his philosophy, and unfortunately could never find it again in the same way he once did.
 

Reddy Rederson

New Member
Joined
May 11, 2018
Messages
3,809
Location
Unicorn Country.
No. He might have had good ideas, but his implementation of them was awful. How many games did we go with ZERO shots on target? Boring, mind numbing football that made Joses bus parking look like high tempo seat of your pants attacking football. How he was sacked was bullshit from the club, but he had to go.
 

2 man midfield

Last Man Standing finalist 2021/22
Joined
Sep 4, 2012
Messages
45,670
Location
?
Think he deserves much better from us. I know he was arrogant, ruthless and had his own way of doing things. But he really identified our problems.

DDG - he wanted to sell him and replace him with a ball playing keeper . In reality he was right, DDG is bloody brilliant at shot stopping but very average in distribution and passing.

High pressing and playing out from the back - this was back when people started talking about high pressing and playing out from the back..not many teams were doing it. He brought in blind at CB and made it work ( I slated him for not playing blind in midfield).

Midfield control - how we took control of the game and dominated the opponents. Game at Anfield was fecking brilliant and so many other games. Yes, i understand it was meaningless possession but that was probably due to quality of our players. Could have made it work with better players .

Identifying the talent - he wanted to sign Mane and we called him clueless for chosing mane ahead of Pedro . He was the one who tried Depay in the middle and that's his position now.

Seriously, he got so many things right and how I wish he had stayed and continued the project . While I understand Jose was a better choice that didn't help us in the long run either.

Some of the things we wish now was implemented by him long back. Just shows we need to be patient to implement something .

Anyone else think this way ?
I couldn’t get past this I’m afraid. We’re still not very good, but we’d be a damn sight worse if we’d been without De Gea since 2015.
 

Paul_Scholes18

Full Member
Joined
Sep 13, 2014
Messages
13,891
Think he deserves much better from us. I know he was arrogant, ruthless and had his own way of doing things. But he really identified our problems.

DDG - he wanted to sell him and replace him with a ball playing keeper . In reality he was right, DDG is bloody brilliant at shot stopping but very average in distribution and passing.

High pressing and playing out from the back - this was back when people started talking about high pressing and playing out from the back..not many teams were doing it. He brought in blind at CB and made it work ( I slated him for not playing blind in midfield).

Midfield control - how we took control of the game and dominated the opponents. Game at Anfield was fecking brilliant and so many other games. Yes, i understand it was meaningless possession but that was probably due to quality of our players. Could have made it work with better players .

Identifying the talent - he wanted to sign Mane and we called him clueless for chosing mane ahead of Pedro . He was the one who tried Depay in the middle and that's his position now.

Seriously, he got so many things right and how I wish he had stayed and continued the project . While I understand Jose was a better choice that didn't help us in the long run either.

Some of the things we wish now was implemented by him long back. Just shows we need to be patient to implement something .

Anyone else think this way ?
De gea saves him during the first season totally. Without him we would not have got champions league football. We almost sold him in the last second and would not have managed to buy another keeper. He has been poor this season though, but selling him at his peak would not have been the best idea unless we got someone like Ter Stegen right now or Oblak.

Many teams did press high and teams have always tried to play out from the back. Chelsea under Mourinho didn't though. Spurs did it although not too well at that time. I could have identified the same problem and I have wanted to play
with high press for many years. Doesn't make me a good manager at all though.

He did buy Blind for other areas, but it didn't work out that well. As a left back Blind did well too though. I liked Blind and not sure we should have sold him, but it has hardly a massive sucess really to buy him.

We had control in some games, but also not too much in others. The formation and team that beat Spurs, Liverpool and City within 4 games was put together due to fluke. Van Persie and di maria had injuries and Falcao had been useless for so bloody long. All his ideas about who to start had failed and he started playing with Fellaini and Herrera who both played really well.

Most of the players he did buy for us failed and we didn't even buy Mane. Why buy Depay and Martial if he did think Mane was better?
 

Rozay

Master of Hindsight
Joined
Oct 22, 2012
Messages
27,025
Location
...
I would have liked to see Martial, CBJ, Varela and TFM continue under him that’s about it for me.
 

0le

Full Member
Joined
Dec 25, 2017
Messages
5,806
Location
UK
I enjoyed the fact that he gave youth a chance and genuinely seemed to want them to do well. He may also have been a little unfortunate with the signings because of Woodward's incompetence. I read that Falcao was fourth on the list or something? I don't think anyone but him enjoyed the football and for that reason he had to go.
 

Paul_Scholes18

Full Member
Joined
Sep 13, 2014
Messages
13,891
No. He might have had good ideas, but his implementation of them was awful. How many games did we go with ZERO shots on target? Boring, mind numbing football that made Joses bus parking look like high tempo seat of your pants attacking football. How he was sacked was bullshit from the club, but he had to go.
I think the reverse. He had bad ideas, but he could implement them well. We played the way he wanted to play. Although we didn't have the players to make things happen enough out of nothing.

Parts of his ideas like how to pass the ball around in the build up probably worked well and I am sure he had many passing drills in training.

Although very little risks and ideas how to actually open teams up and create chances. In the end we turned to long balls to Fellaini and crosses from Young/valencia most of the time and that was pretty much what worked best for us.
 

Keefy18

Full Member
Joined
Nov 13, 2018
Messages
2,653
Nice to see some credit for him, he very much focused on youth but our impatient fan base wouldn't and still won't allow any manager time to rebuild us, affording youth a proper chance.
 

Tiber

Full Member
Joined
Apr 22, 2014
Messages
10,231
LVG was a total fraud here.

Was once a great manager, but not for us
 

Andy_Cole

Full Member
Joined
Apr 15, 2009
Messages
7,856
Location
Manchester
The only time I considered giving up my season ticket was his 2nd season. Such dire stuff.

Also unforgivable for selling Hernandez, Nani, Kagawa, Rafael, Evans, Zaha.

Apologies if I got this wrong and any of these sells were Moyes.
 

Offside

Euro 2016 sweepstake winner
Joined
Jun 9, 2012
Messages
26,627
Location
London
He was absolutely fecking hopeless. Signed nothing but shite and played nothing but shite football. Worst post-Ferguson manager. At least Moyes was simply out of his depth, this guy was an arrogant and stubborn clown.
 

noodlehair

"It's like..."
Joined
Apr 1, 2004
Messages
16,181
Location
Flagg
DDG - he wanted to sell him and replace him with a ball playing keeper . In reality he was right, DDG is bloody brilliant at shot stopping but very average in distribution and passing.
Erm, no he didn't, and we would never have gotten near fourth in his first season or close to winning the FA cup in his second without De Gea. So even if that was his plan thank feck he wasn't allowed to do it.

High pressing and playing out from the back - this was back when people started talking about high pressing and playing out from the back..not many teams were doing it. He brought in blind at CB and made it work ( I slated him for not playing blind in midfield).
Are people STILL pretending Blind was actually good at centreback for us? He also did play him in midfield to start with, on his own. He did get us to play out from the back and press high, but we were nowhere near the first team to start doing this, and we were certainly nowhere near the best at it. We made it look like a stupid idea most of the time. Passing the ball repeatedly to opposition players in our own half and going entire halves of football without even having a shot against worse than mediocre opposition.

Midfield control - how we took control of the game and dominated the opponents. Game at Anfield was fecking brilliant and so many other games. Yes, i understand it was meaningless possession but that was probably due to quality of our players. Could have made it work with better players .
He literally signed about 16 fecking players. If we still didn't have the players at that point to play how he wanted them to, then he was an idiot. The game at Anfield was good, but the "many others" consist of the games against Spurs and City just before and after this game, and 45 minutes against Everton in the FA cup, and that was about it. Not saying this was all down to LVG's tactics being flawed, but most games were a gruelling slog to sit through and would involve us underperforming.

Identifying the talent - he wanted to sign Mane and we called him clueless for chosing mane ahead of Pedro . He was the one who tried Depay in the middle and that's his position now.
He also signed Darmian, Di Maria, Falcao, Schneiderlin, Schweinsteiger, Rojo, etc. He also played Rooney as a central midfielder, Carrick as a centreback, Di Maria as a target man (at the same time as having Rooney in midfield). He does deserve some credit for Rashford and Lingard, but he was so fond of just throwing random young players in the team to paper over his mismanagement of it, you have to wonder if they came through by chance. Blackett, McNair, Valera, Weir, Poole, Powell, Keane, Wilson, Riley, Love, Fosu-Mensa, Borthwick-Jackson, Thorpe, Vermijl, James, Keane (the other one), Janko...fire enough bullets and one will hit something. THere's an argument it isn't the worst strategy but I'm not sure this counts as talent identifying.

Seriously, he got so many things right and how I wish he had stayed and continued the project . While I understand Jose was a better choice that didn't help us in the long run either.

Some of the things we wish now was implemented by him long back. Just shows we need to be patient to implement something .

Anyone else think this way ?
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.
 

Art Vandelay

Full Member
Joined
Jan 29, 2015
Messages
5,729
Location
Northern Ireland
The only time I considered giving up my season ticket was his 2nd season. Such dire stuff.

Also unforgivable for selling Hernandez, Nani, Kagawa, Rafael, Evans, Zaha.

Apologies if I got this wrong and any of these sells were Moyes.
Think they were all him. He tried Kagawa as a central midfielder and when it predictably didn't work he sold him. Nani he tried to play as a striker, same story. Evans, Zaha and Rafael didn't get much of a chance. Hernandez missed a penalty and was a striker not called Wayne Rooney so obviously he had to go.
 

The_Bloods

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Sep 27, 2015
Messages
91
He was right? Ive never got this fascination around having a ball playing keeper, his job is to stop the ball going in the net, he does that better than anyone in the world and i wouldnt swap him for anyone

Do you not remember the Great Dane and how often he set up our attacks? We've been missing that for years now.

(this is also ignoring DDG's terrible positioning and lack of bravery to come and claim balls)
 

Revaulx

Full Member
Joined
Mar 17, 2014
Messages
6,031
Location
Saddleworth
Did he really want to sell DDG? He clearly didn’t stand in his way when the move to Madrid was on, but I wasn’t aware that he wanted to push him out. Anyway, as soon as the transfer fell through DDG was welcomed back into the fold, so clearly no hard feelings.

LvG’s two year reign was arguably DDG’s peak as a keeper. He was still fab in Jose’s first season, but his distribution really turned to shit in his second. I do wonder if it was a mistake to sack Franz Hoek and let Dave bring his mate in as “coach”.
 

Leftback99

Might have a bedwetting fetish.
Joined
Jan 11, 2015
Messages
13,967
No way. He's one of the main reason's the squad is in such a bad state for me.

At centre back he sold Evans and Keane for next to nothing and brought in Rojo for £16m (+ Nani).
Bought Darmian. Less said on that the better. Sold Rafael for next to nothing.
In midfield he brought in Schweinsteiger who was a predictable disaster.
Sold Nani, the last decent right winger we had.
Sold Zaha for next to nothing (i thought he was a great developer of youth?), later complained we had no pace in the squad.
That's just a few of them..
 

Kostur

海尔的老板
Joined
Mar 8, 2012
Messages
28,749
Location
Poland, Kraków
Think he deserves much better from us. I know he was arrogant, ruthless and had his own way of doing things. But he really identified our problems.

DDG - he wanted to sell him and replace him with a ball playing keeper . In reality he was right, DDG is bloody brilliant at shot stopping but very average in distribution and passing.

High pressing and playing out from the back - this was back when people started talking about high pressing and playing out from the back..not many teams were doing it. He brought in blind at CB and made it work ( I slated him for not playing blind in midfield).

Midfield control - how we took control of the game and dominated the opponents. Game at Anfield was fecking brilliant and so many other games. Yes, i understand it was meaningless possession but that was probably due to quality of our players. Could have made it work with better players .

Identifying the talent - he wanted to sign Mane and we called him clueless for chosing mane ahead of Pedro . He was the one who tried Depay in the middle and that's his position now.

Seriously, he got so many things right and how I wish he had stayed and continued the project . While I understand Jose was a better choice that didn't help us in the long run either.

Some of the things we wish now was implemented by him long back. Just shows we need to be patient to implement something .

Anyone else think this way ?
Yeah, he was right in wanting to sell DDG, Jesus Christ. If he could've made it work with better players then he perhaps shouldn't have signed dross like Schneiderlin, Schweinsteiger, Depay, Falcao or ADM.

What? He also got him here and made him play most of his game as a winger, give him credit here for what exactly? Not signing Mane nor Pedro?

Thanks for letting Rashford play and for that FA cup, happy as shit he isn't our manager though, should have never been one in hindsight.
 
Last edited:

clarkydaz

Full Member
Joined
Oct 25, 2013
Messages
13,354
Location
manchester
The only time I considered giving up my season ticket was his 2nd season. Such dire stuff.

Also unforgivable for selling Hernandez, Nani, Kagawa, Rafael, Evans, Zaha.

Apologies if I got this wrong and any of these sells were Moyes.
Pretty sure Evans was woeful around this time, nobody was missing him. Kagawa was strange for me as he seemed exactly what LVG was asking, intelligent tidy risk averse player. Then of course the conflict of making Rooney captain undroppable who hindered so much of our play
 

deafepl

New Member
Joined
May 19, 2017
Messages
2,974
As I'm happy with De Gea at the goalpost but people failed to understand that his distribution creating a lot of trouble for us with his kicking balls and we couldn't mainstream possession when they pressed us, as we were pushed back due to the pressing and passed to De Gea who just kicked balls out from nothing to lose possession, they were already in the third final, it's much easier for them to attack us and we conceded a lot of shot due to this problem.

Smalling and Young is also part of the problem.
 

Revaulx

Full Member
Joined
Mar 17, 2014
Messages
6,031
Location
Saddleworth
Think they were all him. He tried Kagawa as a central midfielder and when it predictably didn't work he sold him. Nani he tried to play as a striker, same story. Evans, Zaha and Rafael didn't get much of a chance. Hernandez missed a penalty and was a striker not called Wayne Rooney so obviously he had to go.
Evans had only himself to blame. He had plenty of chances early on and was consistently crap, culminating in the debacle at MK Dons in the League Cup, after which he was moved to the margins. Later in the season we had the inevitable defensive injury crisis and LvG had no option but to recall him. He actually had a decent run of form but then managed to get himself a lengthy suspension for spitting “at” a Newcastle (?) player. That was the final straw.

Kagawa and Zaha had hardly been roaring successes prior to LvG. The only one who really didn’t get a fair chance was Hernandez.
 

noodlehair

"It's like..."
Joined
Apr 1, 2004
Messages
16,181
Location
Flagg
Why are we being made to relive this terrible time to be a United fan?
Every six months or so one of these threads crops up from someone hoping it's been long enough since LVG left that people will have forgotten how bad we were.

THere is always some new piece of completely made up nonsense to go with it aswell. This time it's the weird De Gea selling thing, which is odd as if anything it would make LVG seem like more of an idiot, not less.
 

Art Vandelay

Full Member
Joined
Jan 29, 2015
Messages
5,729
Location
Northern Ireland
Evans had only himself to blame. He had plenty of chances early on and was consistently crap, culminating in the debacle at MK Dons in the League Cup, after which he was moved to the margins. Later in the season we had the inevitable defensive injury crisis and LvG had no option but to recall him. He actually had a decent run of form but then managed to get himself a lengthy suspension for spitting “at” a Newcastle (?) player. That was the final straw.

Kagawa and Zaha had hardly been roaring successes prior to LvG. The only one who really didn’t get a fair chance was Hernandez.
I actually can't remember the end of Evans time here for some reason, but what you say does sound familiar.

I thought he was harsh on Kagawa, he played him as a deep laying central midfielder in a couple of pre-season matches then got rid. Not so much the sales that bugged me overall, but the complaints that he didn't have the very type of player that he sold. Was crying out for a winger that could run at defenders and pace, sold Nani and Zaha. Complained about not having a clever number 10, sold Kagawa.
 

Kaglish10

Full Member
Joined
Mar 28, 2019
Messages
976
The boring sluggish possession was expected when you consider the options we had in midfield. We had the ageing immobile Carrick, past it sluggish Rooney/immobile slow Mata and lethargic Fellaini in Van Gaal's 3-man midfield, what did people expect with such midfied? Of course, the sluggishness should be expected.

The fact is, if Van Gaal had a quality creative pacy midfielder in his midfield, it would have given us the needed fast tempo in midfield. While it was Van Gaal's fault for banking on "have been" sluggish Rooney/Mata as well as the injury prone schweisteiger as his source of his creativity, he shouldn't be blamed for the sluggishness displayed by the midfield because that should be expected with the midfielders we had. It's always funny to see some blame Van Gaal for failing to bring out the quality in his squad and I ask what quality? The whole squad was filled with several average players sprinkled with few young talents yet Van Gaal did his best with the poor squad and won us the FA cup and also got us fighting for the top four till the very end.

The only thing I would blame him was the lot of average players he signed but then, most of them were punts taken in, such as, Blind, Darmain, Rojo, schweisteiger and Falcao. Martial and Di Maria were the only big money signings he made. Di Maria didn't want to be here in the first place and left as quick as he came. Besides, most of his transfer fees was already recouped after he left for PSG. Van Gaal had wanted Mane but the board didn't want to meet Southampton's asking price, hence he had to settle down on Depay. Morgan Schneiderlin's signing fees was also a little high at £25 mil. Herrera and Shaw weren't signed by Van Gaal but the board while he was still at the world cup. Blind was actually fantastic as a CB under him.

What I liked about Van Gaal was the fact that he had a vision with his possession style but didn't have the quality players to implement it. Likewise his tendency to use young talents if he deemed them good enough. He didn't mind giving trials to the likes of McNair, Blackett, James Reece until they all proved not to be good enough. He didn't mind sticking with Rashford as our central striker after his terrific performance in the absence of Rooney and by the time Rooney returned from his injury lay off, he was deployed in the midfield to accommodate Rashford which was what spoilt his relationship with Rooney because Rooney may not have minded playing as a SS but he didn't buy the idea of playing in a withdrawn midfield role while Rashford played as the only central forward, considering he had wanted to break Manutd goal scoring record.

In fact, I would say Van Gaal's mottos of "my captain must always play" despite Rooney's poor form was his achilles here and he payed the price for it. No wonder the first thing Mourinho did was to dump Rooney on the bench and only have him come in as a sub and also, remove Carrick from his starting team because these two players were factors that contributed to the sluggishness displayed under Van Gaal.
 

Reddy Rederson

New Member
Joined
May 11, 2018
Messages
3,809
Location
Unicorn Country.
I think the reverse. He had bad ideas, but he could implement them well. We played the way he wanted to play. Although we didn't have the players to make things happen enough out of nothing.

Parts of his ideas like how to pass the ball around in the build up probably worked well and I am sure he had many passing drills in training.

Although very little risks and ideas how to actually open teams up and create chances. In the end we turned to long balls to Fellaini and crosses from Young/valencia most of the time and that was pretty much what worked best for us.
I was going to reply to this, but then I started really thinking about it again and became really depressed and annoyed :lol:. So, Im just gonna say, cool, and not think about the LVG years anymore. Sunday nights are shit enough :lol:.
 

thegregster

Harbinger of new information
Joined
Nov 4, 2009
Messages
13,447
His signings were awful.

His football was awful.

A nice man to be fair to him.

The end.
 

Kostur

海尔的老板
Joined
Mar 8, 2012
Messages
28,749
Location
Poland, Kraków
First they start with Gerrard being the best midfielder, then it's LVG, then they try to make you believe that Klopp is a nice guy and the moment you blink, Hitler's up next.
 

11101

Full Member
Joined
Aug 26, 2014
Messages
21,206
He was the best appointment we have made post Ferguson. He knew what was wrong but he was unable to do anything about it. It's too early to judge Ole.

I actually feel like we got the right men in the wrong order. Mourinho should have taken over in 2013 to keep things steady and bring in some top class players. LVG should have been the one to come in after that and rebuild us, and Ole should be the one taking us into the future.
 

Gopher Brown

Full Member
Joined
Jul 16, 2013
Messages
4,530
The only time I considered giving up my season ticket was his 2nd season. Such dire stuff.

Also unforgivable for selling Hernandez, Nani, Kagawa, Rafael, Evans, Zaha.

Apologies if I got this wrong and any of these sells were Moyes.
None of whom were consistent enough, good enough or injury free enough to rely upon. Delete as applicable.
 

Tiber

Full Member
Joined
Apr 22, 2014
Messages
10,231
The only time I considered giving up my season ticket was his 2nd season. Such dire stuff.

Also unforgivable for selling Hernandez, Nani, Kagawa, Rafael, Evans, Zaha.

Apologies if I got this wrong and any of these sells were Moyes.
An even bigger fraud than LVG
 

Aloysius's Back 3

New Member
Joined
May 21, 2018
Messages
2,770
Love LVG.

Ideally we went the whole management reign the wrong way.

We should have had Jose after SAF to guarantee us some success. Then go for LVG to get the next bunch of youth in and finally replace him with our own choice of manager be that home grown or as SAF had wanted - moyes.

Going from LVG to Jose was one of the worst things that I have ever seen at this club because they were so different.

Blind & Smalling looked great together & now we are still wondering about what's happening next because what one manager likes the next one does not.
 

sullydnl

Ross Kemp's caf ID
Joined
Sep 13, 2012
Messages
34,063
He deserved better in terms of the way he was sacked but the sacking itself was entirely justified. Plus the reality was that he would likely have left after another season anyway.

I liked his personality and the fact that he had the presence to stamp his ideas on the team. Unfortunately many of his ideas were terrible and they resulted in us playing some of the worst football I've ever seen from United.

Also, wanting to sell our best player would be a firm negative in my mind, not a positive.