Why Louis van Gaal Should Be Sacked Regardless of How Manchester United’s Season Ends
Paul Ansorge |
May 6, 2016 |
2 Comments
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The idea that Louis van Gaal could get another season at Manchester United has been bandied about of late. The essential premise of the argument appears to be that if he wins the FA Cup and gets fourth place he should be rewarded with another season.
This is, with apologies to those perpetuating it, a very bad argument indeed.
Van Gaal’s performance this season—and over the near-two seasons he has been in charge as a whole—has been a disaster.
Let’s take the fourth place and FA Cup arguments separately.
First of all, the chances of fourth remains entirely uncertain. United have to win their three remaining games and hope City do not win both of theirs. The latter could happen, of course, given City’s recent poor form, though it is far from guaranteed that United will manage the former.
Even if they do, though, it should not be enough. Van Gaal’s relentless commitment to playing two holding midfielders in every game for the first two thirds of the season, the dreary, interminable style of football, the almost complete lack of joy borne of attending Old Trafford this season, all of these are good reasons United should cut ties now. And this is the club with the second best home form in the division—it is not that results have gone against United at Old Trafford, it’s that going has been so existentially pointless. It has hardly ever been any fun.
Also, fourth place is not an achievement worth celebrating. It would show no improvement on last season, and last season was not good enough. In a third season, Van Gaal would be even more of a lame duck than he has been this time around. Given his failure to adequately inspire his charges this season, how likely will it be that he will get more out of them if they are certain he is leaving? Given his apparent “my way or the highway” style of man management, the highway will look pretty appealing.
Then there’s the FA Cup, which, ironically, has been lots of fun.
It’s just that it is hard to shake the feeling this has been in spite of Van Gaal rather than because of him. First of all, any cup competition win comes with a healthy slice of luck. The Red Devils have had an extremely favourable draw. If they win it they will have beaten the team currently 10th in League One, the team currently fifth in the Championship, the team currently 19th in League One, the team currently sixth in the Premier League and the teams currently 11th and 16th in the Premier League.
Of those, West Ham United are the only scalp even close to being impressive.
The semi-final was one of the most enjoyable games United have been involved in all season. Finally Van Gaal abandoned his two holding midfielder policy and moved from a 4-2-3-1 to the 4-3-3 that had seen the Red Devils at their best in 2014/15—such an obvious move it is remarkable it took him nearly all season to make it.
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The football was unrecognisable from the fare served up week after week.
There had been brief flurries of promise before that.
After United beat Derby County and Stoke City in quick succession in the cup and the league, scoring three in each game and playing with a degree of swagger, Jesse Lingard said, “Now we are playing with that freedom and we’ve got a lot of energy in the team. To be mixing up the positions and entertain the crowd, we’ll have to do that, but it’s that freedom that we have, it’s a weight off our shoulders and we can just play football now.”
After Derby, Wayne Rooney had said “I think the manager gave us a lot of freedom to go and play.”
Van Gaal, remarkably, was not happy about this. He said, “I’m not agreeing with the remark of Wayne Rooney when he said that, that is also for Jesse Lingard.” No talk of playing with freedom would be accepted around these parts.
Unsurprisingly, given the boss’ attitude, that freedom turned out to be a false dawn—it has only made cameos since.
At last season’s end of season awards Van Gaal entertained the crowd and promised that United were “so close,” to being a team ready to battle for the title. This season he said “expectations were too high.”
They were not. The expectations were an improvement on last season and some decent football. Neither have been achieved. Whatever happens in the next four games, United must get rid of Van Gaal.
He is of the factually correct opinion that Eric Cantona is the greatest footballer in history—there may have been others who were better at football, but hey, what's football in the grand scheme of things. He also finds writing about himself in the third person unsettling.
LVG should be sucked becoz he spent alot of clubs money and time hence archieving nothing. how can you release Dimaria for Depay, Rafael 4 Damian. now fighting 4 forth position, so ashaming please.
Honesty is the Best policy