Why do you wish its true. Either way United are crap. Van Gaal showed arrogance and tactical naivety at the weekend. Destined to fail. Inexperienced defense + complicated and difficult system = guaranteed fail. More of the same please Van Gaal.
Managers who 'want a challenge' should try the Championship, see if they can get a 'small' team promoted to top flight and push on from there. The only challenge these big name managers seem to want is who can spend the most and buy up all the talent ahead of the competition. Depends how much they'd be willing to pay me [not many genuine players playing for the love of the game anymore, it's all about the money]
Therein lies another trap! Pay the top players more to encourage them to join to compensate for the lack of CL increases the clubs wage expectations. Existing players want more (see Rooney) and not only top player but average one looking to join afterwards also want more money. Its dangerous and slippery ground.
Van Gaal is more qualified than most to turn it around... actually on saying that (and this is the wrong place to ask it) has LVG got any flack for his training methods?? Surely Woodward can't be at fault for the player injuries??
Suarez left a CL team to come to us and was not on huge wages to start with, which is a reason to admire him [even if for some it's the only reason]. There's not too many around like that which is a concern for utd who's only decent signing I think has been Mata.
Suarez was different, nobody wanted him because of his problems, Tottenaham/'Arry said publicly that they chose not to pursue despite having a chance to sign him. It is possible to do without throwing money around though, but then thats kind of the point; Man Utd have said they have money and look like throwing money at the problem.
I just think playing 352 with those defensive players was incredibly stupid for a manager of his experience. He guaranteed defeat by making them awkward. Pretty much every one was in defense was out of position, apart from Jones and Smalling, who are crap. Jones is ok at RB, Fletcher has played CB before. LB fair enough was doomed for this game. But he should have kept it simple with a back 4 so that the players at least understood the role. Fair enough Van Gaal has had some success with 352 (on one occation...) but remember Rafa's 4231 (now the most common system) took years to get good before it worked, so he kept it to one side until the right players were in.
Using 352 all preseaon then abandoning it after half a game reeks of a desperate #fraud who knows he's been found out
You may or may not be right - fact remains there's no queue of players eager to sign and we can only speculate why.
I also see it as materialistic to use it. It worked at the world cup and the press went crazy. They started calling it Van Gaal's trademark, but before the world cup he always used 433. The 352 only happened because of injuries. Van Gaal seems to have like the whole 'trademark' talk and adopted it. But it doesnt work. In most scenarios its just an awkward formation.
I didn't get it at all. Using 352 when 1. the opponents are playing with 1 striker 2. you don't even have 2 good CBs let alone 3 (Blackett FFS, nothing personal against him he's young but starting the league!?) is absolutely ******ed. Was he drunk? It honestly makes zero sense.
The press were calling it his trade mark formation which seems like a good badge to carry. Having a trademark system sounds cool. Like Pep Guardiola. So he's gone along with it.
Van Ghoul only used 352 with Holland at the worldies because he had the level of player and squad to do it with, plus it had been drilled into that Holland side for years. At Utd the quality isn't there to replicate it... to think that you can just replicate a system (straight away) with a completely different club, let alone side is stupid anyway. Every situation is different and calls for an individual approach. It's like if I was playing a tennis match and the opponent had a really strong forehand but vulnerable backhand but I never hit to their backhand side. The PL has teams full of quality and the best sides are ones that can adapt and make quick contextual tactical adjustments during games, as well as having a preferred/defined plan A, that succeed.
You're right. He tried a couple of things, they didn't work but in fairness it was one game and his first. Would be ridiculous to walk [he won't] rather than be flexible. On the other hand he may find, like Moyes, the idea of the job is actually a whole lot better than doing the job
Uniteds problem isnt the Glazer, some people have blamed them but I dont see why. They have made funds available for Woodward and Moyes and LVG. As someone said, they have spent £120m in the last year, so its not like the board is withholding funds. The problem seems to be two fold: 1) Woodward being a total gimp, under valueing players, messing up deals, not being on the ball and not tying deals up quickly and allowing players time to look at other options or consider other offers. 2) Fact of the matter is they are not as an attractive proposition as they were a couple years ago. No CL football, a squad severely lacking in quality when you look past RVP, Rooney, Mata and De Gea, you have to think that a lot of the bigger names in world football are looking at the state of the club and thinking "Do I really want to risk going there? Maybe I should see if I get any better offers?" and this in turn is exacerbating problem 1 (Not getting deals tied up quickly and with no fuss).
Not convince LVG would actually have any legal option to quit. Any more than Suarez could have turned around last summer (2013) and said "Liverpool haven't met my target for a top four finish, I resign". If he's signed a contract, he'll either need to honour it or buy it out before he can walk. Tho' I suppose he could just make enough public statements of discontent to convince the board to accept his resignation.
