“We won’t win the league, we won’t win the cup! We’re Man United….” and actually, I think we’ve all now realised that we really do “give a f**k”.
The season is now one hundred and twenty-three days old; that’s how long ago United beat Tottenham Hotspur 1-0 thanks to a Kyle Walker own goal – still Spurs’ only league defeat this season.
Since then, United have played another twenty four games in all competitions. The Red Devils are fourth in the Premier League, on the same points as Manchester City and just three points off the top.
On the face of it, that sounds okay. However, it’s never, ever that simple. United are out of the Champions League. United are out of the Capital One Cup; and United have found themselves in the Europa League.
All of this needs to be discussed, so I’ll break it up individually and address everything…
Louis van Gaal
First thing’s first, let’s talk about our manager. The Dutchman guided the club to a 4th-place finish in the Premier League last season, and negotiated a potentially tricky Champions League play-off tie against Club Brugge with relative ease.
Going into Tuesday night’s crunch tie against VfL Wolfsburg, he acknowledged that the match was his biggest yet as the manager of Manchester United – and you can’t argue.
Fast forward ninety anxious minutes and he had failed – one of the world’s biggest clubs is now out of Europe’s elite competition. So should he be sacked?
No. No way. It’s ridiculous to suggest that Van Gaal should be axed as United boss – group stage Champions League exit or not. Let’s be realistic, the chances of the Red Devils winning the competition would have been slim at best, had they scraped through to the round of sixteen on Tuesday night. Luis Enrique’s Barcelona recently dispatched the mighty Real Madrid in their own stadium. Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski is capable of scoring five in any match. Massimo Allegri’s Juventus are tough to break down by anyone’s standards. United would have exited, and probably well before reaching the final was even a possibility.
What would happen if Louis van Gaal were to be sacked? Pep Guardiola is still at Bayern Munich, Carlo Ancelotti has said he wouldn’t take a job part of the way through a season and Gary Neville has just taken over at La Liga’s Valencia.
I’ll tell you what would happen. Ryan Giggs would step up. Ryan Giggs would have United playing very similarly to how they are right now, if not in exactly the same way – and Ryan Giggs would lead United to either a third or fourth-placed finish in the Premier League. Louis van Gaal is well on course to do that himself – so why the need for change? The Dutchman is staying until at least the end of the current season.
The Glazers
Having said that, though, Louis van Gaal is under pressure: financial pressure. We know that the Glazers don’t really care about the football – they only care about the money that football produces. If Louis can secure a top-four finish in the Premier League, he’s done his job as far as United’s owners are concerned. That’s the extent of the pressure Van Gaal is under.
Yes, the Champions League is a very healthy financial boost – but it’s much less important than the domestic league in terms of Avram and Joel Glazer’s bank balances. Yes they have forked out for huge signings such as Memphis Depay, Angel di Maria, Luke Shaw and Anthony Martial – but was that really them? What I mean is that the money for those players came from Adidas. David Moyes spent £64.6 million as United manager – Louis van Gaal has multiplied that by four. The Adidas kit deal kicked in after David Moyes left the club – so there’s no coincidence in that Louis van Gaal has more money at his disposal.
David Moyes
I had to address this at some point in here. I’ve seen Van Gaal’s results compared to Moyes’ throughout this season, and quite frankly, it’s a joke. Honestly, if you think United were better off under David Moyes than they are now, I want to know what football you were watching, and what you were smoking whilst watching it. You’re mad. Here’s some examples from the often not-so-wonderful world of Twitter, of how quite a lot of people have managed to wind me up about Moyes…
Under Moyes we won the group unbeaten. Got through the the last 8. Under Van Gaal, most wins are lucky, as are most draws. #VanGaalOut
— @yellapiss
Man Utd fans must agree with me Moyes is a better manager than Van Gaal
— @_Kalewa
The criticism is right for me. We are no better with van gaal whatsoever. He is worse than moyes
— @craigjohnward
It goes on. There are hundreds of tweets just like these. I can’t understand it, that way of thinking. Let’s just take ourselves back to Moyes’ season in charge at Old Trafford. Manchester United, who had won the league by a clear eleven points in the previous season, finished in seventh place in the Premier League, after adding Marouane Fellaini and Juan Mata to the squad. That was Moyes’ impact. Louis van Gaal, on the other hand, took United back into the top four in his first season. Who is really the better manager? I know the answer.
The ‘philosophy’
A lot of people seem to be very confused as to what Louis van Gaal’s philosophy is. It’s a word which is used in abundance, so let me try to explain it.
The first phase of the philosophy came at the start of last season. Van Gaal targeted world-class players in the summer transfer window – Angel di Maria and Radamel Falcao. The success, or lack of, of those two players is irrelevant – Van Gaal’s philosophy involved bringing them in and that’s what he did.
The second phase is and will continue to be a constant – the implementation of youth in the senior squad. In his time with Barcelona, he gave first-team debuts to Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta, Carles Puyol and Victor Valdes. Other debuts given by the Dutchman include Edgar Davids, Patrick Kluivert, Clarence Seedorf, Rafael van der Vaart, Holger Badstuber and David Alaba.
All of these players went on to be world-class, or at least somewhere around that bracket. Louis van Gaal has an eye for youth talent and it will benefit Manchester United in the long run. So far as United manager, he has handed senior debuts to Tyler Blackett, Jesse Lingard, Saidy Janko, Andreas Pereira, Tom Thorpe, Paddy McNair, Cameron Borthwick-Jackson and Guillermo Varela. This is a fundamental part of the philosophy – trust in youth players.
The identification of versatile players is also key. When Van Gaal arrived at Bayern Munich, Bastian Schweinsteiger was a winger. The Dutchman saw something else in him – and moved him to play in a two-man defensive midfield. It’s the same position that he occupies now – and the one he won the World Cup playing in with Germany. He may not have hit the heights at Old Trafford yet, but he was once considered the best in the world in that position by many.
Louis van Gaal is in the process of making this transition with Paddy McNair. Those of you who watched the young Northern Irishman in United’s youth ranks will know that he is a very good midfielder – he’s strong, commanding and has an eye for goal. Louis van Gaal, however, wants him to play in defence – because a defender who is confident on the ball – a “ball-playing” defender – is a huge asset to the side. Look at Sergio Ramos, Jerome Boateng and now Chris Smalling. The ability to pass and dribble at centre-back is a massive bonus.
United will prosper in the long run; the philosophy is doing good, you just need to know what you’re looking for in order to see that.
The Europa League
Rio Ferdinand has labelled the competition as an embarassment to play in – but it’s not all doom and gloom for United in the Europa League. The only real down-side is the Thursday evening match slots; the competition itself is of a high quality this season. Borussia Dortmund, Tottenham Hotspur, Napoli and Athletic Club are all involved, along with an abundance of other highly capable sides.
We have to go for it – but go for it with a different approach. Guillermo Varela and Cameron Borthwick-Jackson impressed against VfL Wolfsburg, despite United ultimately being defeated. So, let’s use them. Get McNair involved, get Powell and Tuanzebe involved and tackle Europe’s second-biggest competition with a fresh approach. The best way for our young players to learn the trade inside out is to throw them in at the deep in. Going from the Champions League to the Europa League, with the latter at the level it is this season, is definitely a case of out of the frying pan – and into the fire. Let’s have it lads.
The outlook
We’ve drawn Sheffield United in the FA Cup, we’re one of the strongest teams in the Europa League and we’re three points off the Premier League leaders. Louis van Gaal is staying until at least the end of the season and that’s that. If you don;t like him, I suggest you get over it quite quickly. He’s not going anywhere.
As much as United are firmly in the running for three very appealing trophies, we have to be realistic; it’ll come down to choosing one of them. To win the Europa League, unless we field a whole host of under-21s (as I suggested), we’d have to take our foot off the gas a bit in the Premier League. To win the FA Cup, the Europa League may have to take a back seat.
Call me pessimistic for this, but I think in our situation, bearing in mind the current injury list too, a good season would be to finish in the top three of the Premier League and win either the FA Cup or the Europa League. If we are to win the Premier League, we’ll crash out of both of the cup competitions fairly soon, I would imagine.
