Louis van Gaal fails as Manchester United endure Champions League woe

With the season over, it's time to assess Manchester United's 2015-16. Here's a look back at Louis van Gaal's poor campaign.

Season in a sentence

Winning the FA Cup shouldn't save Van Gaal after a season of dire football and wretched results culminated in failure to qualify for the Champions League for the second time in the three seasons since Sir Alex Ferguson's departure.

Highlight

Fans will be hoping the highlight is yet to come, with the FA Cup final against Crystal Palace on Saturday. From the games to this point, it's hard to think of many real highs in the season.

For all of Van Gaal's failings -- and there have been many -- he at least tends to get results in big games against the club's hated rivals. United picked up 10 points of a possible 12 from Manchester City and Liverpool, as well as wins against Arsenal and Tottenham.

Against all odds, United beat Arsenal 3-2 in February with a hugely understrength squad and a bench made up of academy players. At that point, Arsenal were probably the title favourites. The 3-1 home win over Liverpool on Sept. 12 was great, with Anthony Martial announcing himself to the Premier League with a debut goal, as was the victory at Anfield in January, with Wayne Rooney grabbing all three points with a late, scrappy finish.

The best of these moments, though, was Marcus Rashford's goal in the 1-0 win at Manchester City on March 20. For a local lad, particularly one with just a handful of games under his belt, to score the winner on derby day was incredible.

Low point

There are so many to choose from. Losing at home against Norwich and Southampton made for pretty awful days. In terms of a period of time, going eight matches without a win in the run up to Christmas was horrendous.

Luke Shaw's leg break back in September was a huge blow -- not only for the obvious reason of how awful it is to see a footballer end his season but also because he had started the campaign so well. Disappointed with his first season, he spent some of his time off in Dubai with a fitness coach from the club to ensure he was in the best possible condition for when the season started, so it was terrible to see his injury.

Still, the day that probably eclipsed all was United's away trip to Anfield in the Europa League on March 10. Losing to Liverpool would have been bad enough, but for the players to not even put up a fight was shameful. There was some hope in the return leg, but when Philippe Coutinho equalised just before halftime, it was all over. Listening to the traveling fans singing songs about the Brazilian and letting off flares throughout the break was particularly sickening.

Star man

David De Gea is the obvious standout performer, and he has been consistently great all season. Who knows where United would be without him? De Gea became the first player to win the Sir Matt Busby Player of the Year award on three occasions, which arguably says as much about this current squad as it does him.

The star man is Martial, though. Not many United fans had heard of him at the start of the season, but he has gone on to score 17 goals, which is a pretty good return for a player who turned only 20 halfway through the campaign. His most important goals were against Liverpool in his debut and the injury time winner against Everton to put United through to the FA Cup final.

What's next?

The fans are hoping to win the FA Cup and, after that, for a new manager to be appointed for the start of next season.

Something has to change, and it has to happen quickly, before this transitional period becomes a deep-rooted decline. The football has been abysmal this season, which made even some of the victories fairly joyless, and that can't go on any longer. Van Gaal's failure to secure a top-four finish surely means the club has no choice but to dismiss him.

Seeing executive vice chairman Ed Woodward replaced would also go down fairly well.

Scott is a season-ticket holder from Manchester who set up The Republik of Mancunia in 2006. Follow him on Twitter @R_o_M.