This is all smoke and mirrors by UIR. I'm afraid it's the same old "going round in circles" with him. The problem is UIR has such a limited view of football - it's not a sport, it's not an art form, there's no skill or technical ability or sense of excitement or teamwork, or imagination or even entertainment which should lead to progress and results. No, his arguments always boil down to the lowest common denominator - the results. Which is fine for him, but he seems to think everyone else has the same thought process as him. Hence why he makes up stuff about other people's opinions. It's also why he's misquoted me and Stan digging up posts that have no bearing on Van Gaal.
In response to what you've just said, I would say, I've never really been bothered about short term success. I would say I've been fortunate enough to have had my fair share of that (success that I could never have dreamed of as a kid 30 years ago, and certainly more than most fans will witness in their lifetime). I would honestly forego success for the immediate future IF we had a manager who could build a team that is defensively sound (as Van Gaal has done to his credit) while building an attacking, entertaining, expansive, free-flowing footballing team that looks like it's heading somewhere. Or at the very least, see the roots or ethos of that beginning to be embedded within the club and on the pitch.
Last season, I wasn't too bothered about the "back 3/5" debacle to be honest. But as the season went on, it became more and more apparent we were going from one extreme (Moyes who was clueless about the importance of possession football) to another extreme (LVG where possession became the be all and end all, at the expense of attacking flair, vision and efficiency). The unimaginative, one dimensional football became worse as the season went on. We had a purple patch Diego where we destroyed a couple of teams, but actually if you look at the end of the season, it's no different to what's happening now. The widespread opinion was his target for the first season was to achieve top 4. He achieved that, but unconvincingly... and the results soon caught up with the performances. The last half dozen games were dire and we crawled over the line. This season, he improved the squad, but the performances remained the same... and guess what, the results are once again catching up with the performances. Stan and I use the term cowardly football. UIR takes this personally. As if outside of his work, LVG can't cross the road without pi55ing his pants. It's not about him personally. It's about what he's embedding on the football pitch. Through his player selections, substitutions, style of football. And you can now see that fear in the players bcos it's coming (directly & indirectly) from the manager. Sorry but as a football supporter that's unforgiveable.. whether you're a United fan or a Sunderland fan. I've always said I support the position, rather than the individual. He is the manager so I'll respect his position. I'd be content to see him see out the rest of his contract, but I really don't have any belief in him achieving any of the expectations I listed above. He'll probably get us achieving top 4 playing painfully dull, unimaginative football but that's about it. But I'll be damned if during the next 18 months I'm going to be polishing his turd like UIR does.
