Though it's not the Champions League, this was a big game, and the players' lack of fight was damning. Saying that, we've seen a bit of character since Christmas against the likes of Chelsea and Arsenal.
I don't think he's quite lost the players as Moyes had. If I had to guess, I'd say that they just don't get what Van Gaal is asking them to do. Maybe it's too defensive, too restrictive, too fussy and complicated, I don't know. But that's how it feels to me.
Christmas was the time for him to go, nobody in their right mind saw anything in our performances last season and the first half of this to suggest he had anything up his sleeve, and whaddaya know, he doesn't.
We need a complete revamp at board and managerial level, if Mourinho comes in we'll probably win a few trophies but the deep rooted issues that lie in this club will still be there.
comment by Clockwork Red (U4892)
posted 39 seconds ago
I'd say that they just don't get what Van Gaal is asking them to do. Maybe it's too defensive, too restrictive, too fussy and complicated, I don't know. But that's how it feels to me.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You'd be amazed at how well organised and good to watch youth teams can be with limited instruction:
Mark/Track your man
Pass and move
Run into space
Keep it on the deck
Hunt in packs
Our players haven't forgotten how to be great footballers and how to enjoy themselves. They're being held accountable for every action they take on a pitch, do something unapproved and you're on the bench for the next few weeks.
comment by Benched (U7195)
posted 13 seconds ago
comment by Clockwork Red (U4892)
posted 39 seconds ago
I'd say that they just don't get what Van Gaal is asking them to do. Maybe it's too defensive, too restrictive, too fussy and complicated, I don't know. But that's how it feels to me.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You'd be amazed at how well organised and good to watch youth teams can be with limited instruction:
Mark/Track your man
Pass and move
Run into space
Keep it on the deck
Hunt in packs
Our players haven't forgotten how to be great footballers and how to enjoy themselves. They're being held accountable for every action they take on a pitch, do something unapproved and you're on the bench for the next few weeks.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yep. LVG just seems to over-complicate things. Too clever for his own good, to the detriment of the team.
He should have gone at Christmas. However, the decision to replace him in July may already have been taken, a deal may be in place. So maybe the board aren't just sitting on their hands. I pray this is the case.
Even so, I don't think you should just write a season off and think someone, anyone, should have been brought in on an interim basis.
Genuinely don't know how we fix this. Jose will decimate the little good from LVG in respect of youth prospects and will have us playing some pretty horrendous football after he spends a fortune on players with no resale value.
Take a gamble on Tuchel? Doubt he would come though.
The state Jose leaves clubs in is grossly overstated. He could and probably will fall out with all and sundry before he leaves. But he doesn't always leave a terrible squad. If that was the case, Chelsea wouldn't have been a penalty kick away from winning the CL against United and Real wouldn't have won the CL within a year of him leaving. His football is also much much better than the current rubbish, though he will go defensive when he feels circumstances dictate so.
Would he be a perfect appointment? Do I have no doubts about him? Hardly. But he could very well put us back on the right track
Sadly Ed needs to stay for financial reasons but nothing to do with football reasons. We need a Director of Football next season definitely
comment by Barf Vader (U15867)
Yep. LVG just seems to over-complicate things. Too clever for his own good, to the detriment of the team.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Nah, not buying into that. He got a bunch of young kids, nobody had ever heard of before, play brilliant football at Ajax, winning the Europa League and Champions League with them, before loosing all his star players to big European teams after the Bosman arrest. He got a bunch of virtual nobodies from a little club in Holland, AZ, none of whom would ever be considered good enough to play for any team in the PL, play his football and win the Dutch league. Only the second time that team won the league (first time was somewhere in the 70's). He got a very mediocre Dutch national team almost to the WC finals.
Maybe the problem lies more with the football intelligence of English players, or players who have been brought up in the English system?
Not saying van Gaal is without faults, far from. He's got plenty, and one very big problem is he cannot handle big superstar players. So buying Angel di Maria was a big mistake and waste of money. At every club he has played, the big arrived players fell out with him, like Rivaldo at Barca.
The thing he is very good at is playing with youngsters, and developing them. See the Ajax team in the 90's, see him discovering Thomas Muller at the amateur team! from Bayern Munich. When van Gaal came, the owners / board should have realized the club needed to be rebuild from the bottom up, and give him a few years to develop youngsters (which he is good at), and let his successor reap the benefits, and not waste money like that.
And you guys do have some rough diamonds in the team, like Martial, Rashford, Fosu-Mensah, Lindgard, and even Depay (give the kid at least a year to get used to the PL before writing him off).
To be frank, and not just because in the UK I support Liverpool, I think it's best for you guys to let van Gaal run down his contract, nurture and improve this talent, (forcing van Gaal to play them!), and then let another coach take over. Thing is, if you appoint the wrong coach now, and I think Mourinho would definitely be that, this talent would be wasted and or mostly ignored.
Btw, found it funny how Scholesy and Rio were - imo - blaming van Gaal there is nothing left of the stature United had under Fergie. Again, imo, Fergie himself is largely to blame for that. The last couple of years under his reign the football became more mediocre, and the quality of the players was such that an ancient Gigs was still his best man, and he was even forced to bring back a just as geriatric Scholes from retirement cos the rest was so awful.
Fergie did not leave a team for his successor at all, and the club still hasn't recovered from that.
Again, imo, Fergie himself is largely to blame for that. The last couple of years under his reign the football became more mediocre, and the quality of the players was such that an ancient Gigs was still his best man, and he was even forced to bring back a just as geriatric Scholes from retirement cos the rest was so awful.
Fergie did not leave a team for his successor at all, and the club still hasn't recovered from that.
__________________
SAF is at least partly to blame, I agree. Said for years before he retired that our squad was becoming dangerously weak.
That said, LVG clearly has no idea how to inspire and motivate these players, many of which he signed himself. Yet again we were second to every ball and simply had less fight than the opposition. This is the one thing I cannot accept under any circumstances and it happens too often under LVG.
Fellaini's comments are interesting - saying that the players did not "respect the manager's game plan in the first half". What the hell does that mean?
Page 1 of 1
First
Previous
1
Next
Latest
Sign in if you want to comment
Longer this goes on....
Page 1 of 1
posted on 10/3/16
Though it's not the Champions League, this was a big game, and the players' lack of fight was damning. Saying that, we've seen a bit of character since Christmas against the likes of Chelsea and Arsenal.
I don't think he's quite lost the players as Moyes had. If I had to guess, I'd say that they just don't get what Van Gaal is asking them to do. Maybe it's too defensive, too restrictive, too fussy and complicated, I don't know. But that's how it feels to me.
posted on 10/3/16
Christmas was the time for him to go, nobody in their right mind saw anything in our performances last season and the first half of this to suggest he had anything up his sleeve, and whaddaya know, he doesn't.
posted on 10/3/16
We need a complete revamp at board and managerial level, if Mourinho comes in we'll probably win a few trophies but the deep rooted issues that lie in this club will still be there.
posted on 10/3/16
comment by Clockwork Red (U4892)
posted 39 seconds ago
I'd say that they just don't get what Van Gaal is asking them to do. Maybe it's too defensive, too restrictive, too fussy and complicated, I don't know. But that's how it feels to me.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You'd be amazed at how well organised and good to watch youth teams can be with limited instruction:
Mark/Track your man
Pass and move
Run into space
Keep it on the deck
Hunt in packs
Our players haven't forgotten how to be great footballers and how to enjoy themselves. They're being held accountable for every action they take on a pitch, do something unapproved and you're on the bench for the next few weeks.
posted on 10/3/16
comment by Benched (U7195)
posted 13 seconds ago
comment by Clockwork Red (U4892)
posted 39 seconds ago
I'd say that they just don't get what Van Gaal is asking them to do. Maybe it's too defensive, too restrictive, too fussy and complicated, I don't know. But that's how it feels to me.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You'd be amazed at how well organised and good to watch youth teams can be with limited instruction:
Mark/Track your man
Pass and move
Run into space
Keep it on the deck
Hunt in packs
Our players haven't forgotten how to be great footballers and how to enjoy themselves. They're being held accountable for every action they take on a pitch, do something unapproved and you're on the bench for the next few weeks.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yep. LVG just seems to over-complicate things. Too clever for his own good, to the detriment of the team.
posted on 10/3/16
He should have gone at Christmas. However, the decision to replace him in July may already have been taken, a deal may be in place. So maybe the board aren't just sitting on their hands. I pray this is the case.
Even so, I don't think you should just write a season off and think someone, anyone, should have been brought in on an interim basis.
posted on 10/3/16
Genuinely don't know how we fix this. Jose will decimate the little good from LVG in respect of youth prospects and will have us playing some pretty horrendous football after he spends a fortune on players with no resale value.
Take a gamble on Tuchel? Doubt he would come though.
posted on 10/3/16
The state Jose leaves clubs in is grossly overstated. He could and probably will fall out with all and sundry before he leaves. But he doesn't always leave a terrible squad. If that was the case, Chelsea wouldn't have been a penalty kick away from winning the CL against United and Real wouldn't have won the CL within a year of him leaving. His football is also much much better than the current rubbish, though he will go defensive when he feels circumstances dictate so.
Would he be a perfect appointment? Do I have no doubts about him? Hardly. But he could very well put us back on the right track
posted on 11/3/16
Sadly Ed needs to stay for financial reasons but nothing to do with football reasons. We need a Director of Football next season definitely
posted on 11/3/16
comment by Barf Vader (U15867)
Yep. LVG just seems to over-complicate things. Too clever for his own good, to the detriment of the team.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Nah, not buying into that. He got a bunch of young kids, nobody had ever heard of before, play brilliant football at Ajax, winning the Europa League and Champions League with them, before loosing all his star players to big European teams after the Bosman arrest. He got a bunch of virtual nobodies from a little club in Holland, AZ, none of whom would ever be considered good enough to play for any team in the PL, play his football and win the Dutch league. Only the second time that team won the league (first time was somewhere in the 70's). He got a very mediocre Dutch national team almost to the WC finals.
Maybe the problem lies more with the football intelligence of English players, or players who have been brought up in the English system?
Not saying van Gaal is without faults, far from. He's got plenty, and one very big problem is he cannot handle big superstar players. So buying Angel di Maria was a big mistake and waste of money. At every club he has played, the big arrived players fell out with him, like Rivaldo at Barca.
The thing he is very good at is playing with youngsters, and developing them. See the Ajax team in the 90's, see him discovering Thomas Muller at the amateur team! from Bayern Munich. When van Gaal came, the owners / board should have realized the club needed to be rebuild from the bottom up, and give him a few years to develop youngsters (which he is good at), and let his successor reap the benefits, and not waste money like that.
And you guys do have some rough diamonds in the team, like Martial, Rashford, Fosu-Mensah, Lindgard, and even Depay (give the kid at least a year to get used to the PL before writing him off).
To be frank, and not just because in the UK I support Liverpool, I think it's best for you guys to let van Gaal run down his contract, nurture and improve this talent, (forcing van Gaal to play them!), and then let another coach take over. Thing is, if you appoint the wrong coach now, and I think Mourinho would definitely be that, this talent would be wasted and or mostly ignored.
Btw, found it funny how Scholesy and Rio were - imo - blaming van Gaal there is nothing left of the stature United had under Fergie. Again, imo, Fergie himself is largely to blame for that. The last couple of years under his reign the football became more mediocre, and the quality of the players was such that an ancient Gigs was still his best man, and he was even forced to bring back a just as geriatric Scholes from retirement cos the rest was so awful.
Fergie did not leave a team for his successor at all, and the club still hasn't recovered from that.
posted on 11/3/16
Again, imo, Fergie himself is largely to blame for that. The last couple of years under his reign the football became more mediocre, and the quality of the players was such that an ancient Gigs was still his best man, and he was even forced to bring back a just as geriatric Scholes from retirement cos the rest was so awful.
Fergie did not leave a team for his successor at all, and the club still hasn't recovered from that.
__________________
SAF is at least partly to blame, I agree. Said for years before he retired that our squad was becoming dangerously weak.
That said, LVG clearly has no idea how to inspire and motivate these players, many of which he signed himself. Yet again we were second to every ball and simply had less fight than the opposition. This is the one thing I cannot accept under any circumstances and it happens too often under LVG.
Fellaini's comments are interesting - saying that the players did not "respect the manager's game plan in the first half". What the hell does that mean?
Page 1 of 1