It’s not the 90’s anymore, Louis! 14 Feb 2016 14:07

By Frank Mead, Editor

Another defeat yesterday for Manchester United has cranked up the pressure even more on Louis van Gaal. It’s not just the result, but the stale performance to go with it that is making his position as United boss untenable.

Like most Reds, I was excited when LVG took over. It seemed like the perfect fit, a manager with a history of winning trophies, and the arrogance & self-belief needed to sit in the Old Trafford hot seat. So why hasn't it worked?

The answer could lie in something that Barcelona legend Xavi said in an interview recently. He said that his former manager was “ahead of his time”, a visionary. When you look into the Philosophy that LVG is so fond of, he could well have a point. But being ahead of your time two decades ago is one thing, but learning to adapt as everyone else catches up is a totally different animal.

Arsène Wenger was exactly the same when he first arrived at Arsenal. His ideas on fitness, and the way players lived their lives away from the pitch, were revolutionary. They were a big factor in why Arsenal went from also-rans to Premier League champions in less than two years. But he is another who hasn’t changed one iota since the day he took the job. If anything, he’s gone backwards. The football served up by his teams is still very easy on the eye, but he no longer has hard men like Vieira, Parlour, Adams and Keown to drag the team by the bootstraps when the going gets tough. Nowadays, they get bullied easily, and don’t have a plan B when the pretty football is no longer working.

The style of football on show at Old Trafford has been slated by fans and media alike, especially this season. It seems that keeping possession is more important than having a go at the opposition. Take Wayne Rooney, for example; we all know that he is not the explosive player he was a few years back, his game has changed. But one asset that definitely hasn’t deserted him is his ability to score cracking goals – as demonstrated in his finishes at Derby and Newcastle recently. But he seems to do it less and less these days, probably because he’s scared of what LVG might write on that tablet he takes everywhere. His reaction after the Sunderland game said it all – he’s fed up, and he’s probably not the only one.

Individually, the players at Manchester United are a lot better than we are seeing on a weekly basis. The vast majority are internationals, each of them with dozens of international caps to their names. I wouldn’t say we have the best squad in the league, not by a long way, but they shouldn’t be struggling to make the top four – especially given the inconsistency of the other teams around them.

The annoying thing is that van Gaal DOES know how to play attacking football, and there are plenty of examples of it – some of them, very recent. We all know how great his Ajax side were in 1995. A few months after winning the Champions League, they went to the Bernabéu to play Real Madrid and won 2 – 0. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. They also had two goals disallowed, and hit the woodwork twice, while Madrid could barely get into the opposition half. How many teams go to Madrid and do that, other than Barcelona in recent years?

When Manchester United won the Treble in 1999, they faced LVG’s Barcelona side and played out two fantastic 3 – 3 draws. They went at us, we went at them – there wasn’t a boring moment in either game. Both matches are thought of by most United fans as classics.

But in recent times, the attacking football only seems to show itself when van Gaal has absolutely no other option. Having agreed to take over at Old Trafford after the 2014 World Cup, every United fan tuned in to watch Holland thrash Spain in their opening match. As the Dutch wiped the floor with the reigning world champions, most would have been rubbing their hands in glee (I certainly was). But van Gaal had no choice other than to play the attacking style, as his main defensive midfielder, Kevin Strootman, suffered a severe knee injury three months before the tournament. Holland didn’t have the strength in depth to play a defensive game, so LVG took a risk and went for all-out attack – a gamble that paid dividends.

Think back to his first season at Old Trafford, the football had been pretty much the same as we’re seeing now, but the results were better. As injuries started mounting up, a shortage of left backs meant that Daley Blind was moved there from midfield. LVG tried a midfield three of Carrick, Fellaini and Ander Herrera in the games against Tottenham, Liverpool, Aston Villa and Manchester City. The result was that we scored twelve goals in four games, playing some magnificent football in the process. Again, his hand was forced but it showed he can do it if he has to.

Most United fans believe that the team should be built around Herrera. Out of the central midfield options we have, he is by far the most creative. History shows that this is exactly the type of player LVG has ostracized over the years – a certain Brazilian by the name of Rivaldo would probably testify to that. His keep-possession-at-all-costs tactics are what his Philosophy is all about. Herrera is the type of player who takes risks, which is in complete contradiction of van Gaal’s style of play. Makes you wonder why he spent £30 million on him.

As great a manager as Sir Alex Ferguson was, I never thought of him as a master tactician, but rather that his greatest strength was as a motivator and man manager. Both times when we won the Champions League under him, it was because he had built such a fantastic squad that tactics were often unnecessary. Despite this, however, he knew when he needed to adapt. He began breaking up that squad in 2001, when he could probably have kept it ticking over successfully for another couple of years – in the Premier League, at least. But Europe had worked us out, and he experimented by putting van Nistelrooy up front with Scholes just behind him. It didn’t really work, and the title he won in 2003 was more down to Arsenal throwing it away, but at least he tried to adapt to the changing ways of the modern game.

Maybe if van Gaal had done the same, he wouldn’t have the shadow of José Mourinho hanging over him.