Louis van Gaal lost his Manchester United job because of a failed philosophy

If there is an image that best depicts Louis van Gaal's reign at Manchester United, it is of a red-shirted player checking his forward run instead of going for goal. Since his arrival in 2014 every Manchester United player has looked preoccupied in attack: Too much to remember, too many constraints, strictly limited freedom of expression.

Van Gaal proved an ill fit for a club that prides itself on attacking football. "We never stand still, we give youth a chance as we try and play attractive football," Ryan Giggs told the Old Trafford crowd when speaking after United's final home game of the 2013-14 season.

He had said that when serving as interim manager after the removal of David Moyes, and as United collapsed 2-1 to Norwich on Dec.19 last year, the sight of United's assistant manager prowling the touchline and urging players forward was telling.

Giggs staged a repeat performance as United suffered another 2-1 defeat on Feb.13, this time at relegation-threatened Sunderland. Was Giggs, a keeper of the flame with almost three decades at the club, disassociating himself from Van Gaal?

He was certainly acting against protocol; Van Gaal almost always refused to leave his seat in the dugout. Instead, he would be making notes in his leather-bound notepad. Only at Newcastle, as his team were pegged back to a 3-3 draw on Jan.12, did the manager approach the technical area.

"I am always on the bench because my philosophy is that we have to prepare our players to play the match and when you are shouting on the sideline, there is nobody you can contact during the game," the Dutchman explained last year.

Van Gaal filled many news conferences with the word "philosophy" -- and frequently used another: "process" -- yet few could locate the thread of his philosophy, while the process in clearest view was one of stagnation.

United exited Champions League at Wolfsburg on Dec. 8, and will not be in next season's competition as they could only finish fifth in this season's Premier League. They finished behind an ailing Manchester City on goal difference -- wholly avoidable when one considers results like losing to a borderline relegation team like Bournemouth and then to eventually-relegated Norwich in December. Champions League qualification is the minimum requirement for any modern manager of Manchester United, and Van Gaal has paid the same price that Moyes did in April 2014.

Manchester is a city of sharp humour and no nonsense; Van Gaal's lengthy sermons did little to convince the locals, especially when the evidence presented by the manager was little but rank tedium. These days it might be unrealistic for United to return to the two-winger, hell-for-leather approach that won them trophies under great managers like Sir Matt Busby and Sir Alex Ferguson, but Van Gaal's possession-based style proved almost as outdated. 

In a Premier League where pace is nine-tenths of the law, United played with the handbrake on. It was football from the mid-1990s -- by little coincidence, the same time as Van Gaal's heyday as a Champions League-winning coach with Ajax.

His players often performed as if disconnected from the instructions of their manager. ESPN FC sources suggest that his team selections confused and irritated his players. They never cracked the complicated code that Van Gaal had suggested in his early months in charge would eventually bring success. Confused, sterile, often grinding to a halt, United's performance levels swooped disastrously low.

The paying public at Old Trafford did not see a first-half goal from their team for 11 straight matches during the 2015-16 season. For fans of a certain age, the lack of entertainment recalled the "Cold Trafford" over which Dave Sexton presided before being sacked at the end of the 1980-81 campaign, despite winning his last seven matches in charge. A partial late-season revival, where the youthful likes of Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford flourished, would not change the minds of the doubters.

It was in the Europa League, though, that the nadir was reached. Losing 2-1 at Danish minnows FC Midtjylland, a club formed in 1999 -- the year United won their historic treble -- in the Round of 32 first leg was a poor result. But the performance of the team, admittedly patched together after a raft of injuries, plumbed new depths of inadequacy.

When Van Gaal blamed that embarrassment on "the law of Murphy," he was severely stretching credibility. Though United eventually progressed, a victory powered by Rashford being given an unplanned debut when Martial pulled up in the warm-up, the next round saw United embarrassed by eventual finalists Liverpool, where Jurgen Klopp was offering hope with a fresh, exciting brand of football.

It took until Feb. 2, and a 3-0 home defeat of Stoke for United to score two first-half goals in a game. This season's points-per-game average of 1.74 ended up being just fractionally above hapless Moyes' 1.73. United scored just 49 goals, by far their lowest total of the Premier League era.

Van Gaal proved just as unsuitable a successor to Ferguson as the 26-year veteran's fellow Scot had been. And while Moyes was granted just Marouane Fellaini and Juan Mata as additions to his squad, a figure north of £250 million was spent on rebuilding Manchester United under the Dutchman, only to see negligible improvement. Moyes departed with United in seventh, and Van Gaal in fifth, with six points fewer than the previous season.

Each of Van Gaal's 12 first-team signings looked sensible, but few of them improved the team or appeared to have learned much from Van Gaal. Angel Di Maria, the most expensive signing in English football history at £59.7m, proved to be a total disaster.

Only defender Chris Smalling appears to have augmented his game from the original group of outfield players that Van Gaal inherited, and without goalkeeper David De Gea, United might have found themselves in a similar mess to that which enveloped Chelsea in 2015-16.

Van Gaal's faith in Wayne Rooney also proved misguided, as the captain turned in a half-season during which he scored only two Premier League goals and looked incapable of inspiring his teammates.

Rooney's return to scoring form in early 2016, including a winning goal at Liverpool on Jan.17, could not paper over the cracks. He succumbed to a knee injury after a 2-1 defeat at Sunderland on Feb.13 and his absence, leaving United without a senior striking option, only exposed the imbalance of the squad that Van Gaal had been allowed to build. Rashford's six goals in 14 Premier League games was a hugely fortunate joker to play.

Before Rashford's arrival, probably the most thrilling moment of the 2015-16 season for United fans was debutant Martial blazing through Liverpool's defence in early September to score the type of goal that was once habitual entertainment at Old Trafford.

It swiftly became tempting to theorise that this was Martial, who had been on international duty with France since his £36m deadline-day signing from Monaco, playing before Van Gaal's process and philosophy could alter him. Martial subsequently went three months in which he scored just one goal, before hitting a richer vein of late-season form.

Returning United to the Champions League this season by finishing fourth in 2014-15 had been achieved without much in the way of style. Only during a run of beating Spurs 3-0 at home in March, before winning 2-1 at Liverpool and then later finding success in the Manchester derby 4-2, did United look anything like a team working to a plan.

But the next three matches were lost 1-0 at Chelsea, 3-0 at Everton and then 1-0 at home to West Brom. Had Liverpool not also been in the process of their own collective meltdown, then fourth place would have been missed out on.

This campaign was supposed to be the season where Van Gaal's team kicked on, with another raft of signings and a full preseason in which he could embed his "philosophy." It never resulted. The previous year, Van Gaal had joined in mid-July, coming straight from leading his Netherlands team to a rather surprising third-place at the World Cup.

That achievement had augmented his reputation, but the question of why executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward turned to someone who had not worked in club management since 2011 and had been sacked by Bayern Munich and twice by Barcelona, now seems more pertinent than ever.

Van Gaal's outward haughty confidence eventually slumped to where he looked as haunted and harried as Moyes. The pair's departures suggest how tough achieving success at Old Trafford can be. Manchester United cannot now allow themselves to sign up a third failed Ferguson replacement.

John Brewin is a staff writer for ESPN FC. Follow him on Twitter @JohnBrewinESPN.