---
title: "A look at van Gaal’s formation changes throughout the season"
canonical: "https://readmanutd.com/2015/06/28/a-look-at-van-gaals-formation-changes-throughout-the-season/"
type: "post"
language: "en-GB"
section: "Features"
published: "2015-06-28T12:38:01Z"
modified: "2015-06-28T12:38:01Z"
---

# A look at van Gaal’s formation changes throughout the season

The Red Devils’ season started off with a lot of excitement and enthusiasm, it was all due to promising work of newly appointed manager, Louis Van Gaal whose United side flourished in the pre-season tour in the United States giving the fans a hope to have some positive expectations from their team. But still many worried if the Dutchman’s tactics would work fine with the Manchester Club as it was only his debut season in the Premier League.

Louis van Gaal had opted to go for his favored 3-5-2 formation at United, the one which was a success during his stints at his previous teams like Barcelona, Bayern and the Netherlands national side. This was never used by any top club in the Premier League and hence the questions regarding this had started to buzz all around the media. Just like the critics had guessed, it didn’t work and the Red Devils who went winless for 3 continuous matches at the beginning of the season of which they lost their opening game to Swansea at home with the game ending at 1-2.

After this horrific start to their campaign, the Dutchman switched his tactics back to a 4 man defense. The 1st match under this formation proved to be good one as United won the game with a big score of 4-0 against QPR at Old Trafford. Things were looking good for them until the big 5-3 at the hands of promoted side Leicester City. Despite of taking a 2-1 lead in the 1st half, the Red Devils lost the game.  van Gaal was again under pressure to change his formation.

There were a number of formations used by the boss but none of them seem to fit in a consistent way to the team. Of course, the main problem was to determine every player’s preferred position on field. Also he had played the skipper, Wayne Rooney at the center midfield quite a few sometimes which was considered as a big mistake by many. Though this was done only when their main holding players – Carrick or Blind were absent. But thankfully, van Gaal learned that this wasn’t a wise decision.

The biggest change came after the disappointing FA Cup quarter final defeat, where LvG again changed the formation to 4-3-3 in a crucial match against Tottenham. United just completely took control of the game and had a convincing 3-0 victory. This was followed by big wins against rivals Liverpool and Manchester City. At this time the team ws well settled in with 4-1-4-1 style of play with Rooney playing as a center forward, his natural position.

There were a lot of remarks on van Gaal’s tactics used at Man Utd at his debut season, but it looks like he has found the perfect solution. With more number of players expected to join in, van Gaal definitely needs to find a rigid and working formation for the team that’ll take them to win the league title this year.