This past week was supposed to be a pivotal week for Louis Van Gaal's Manchester United. The club went into the week needing wins over PSV and Leicester City to qualify for the champions league knockout phase and to top the league standings respectively. But to compound the frustrations of the fans, the Red Devils failed to win in both matches. Van Gaal has been heavily criticized in recent weeks for his team's dull pragmatic football. Supporting fans have been seen chanting 'attack attack, attack' in recent matches. The frustration has brewed to a point that some are calling for the Dutch coach to be sacked. Sacking might be unfair on the gaffer who took us back to the champions league after a disastrous campaign and has guided United to the third spot in the current league campaign. But I must say, although I don't agree with sacking him now, I am personally struggling to see the benefits of keeping him past May.
I know a lot of people may disagree with me, but whether we like it or not Van Gaal will be going the year after and we would need a new coach anyway. I think he has done all he can. Don't get me wrong, he has done a great rebuilding job, especially after the disastrous Moyes era. He has shipped out most of the 'deadwoods' such as Welbeck, Robin Van Persie, Tom Cleverly, Fletcher, Johnny Evans and many others from the team. The Dutch coach has also brought stability to the team, especially the defence. He seems also to be promoted more youth players to the first team. The likes of McNair, Blackett, Perreira, Wilson and Lingard have had their fair share of chances over the past 18 months. But there are negatives that I think are worrying.
You obviously know what the first issue is right? United are playing in a flawed system that is slowly killing the creativity of our players. The system lacks pace and it's too restrictive. Van Gaal says his attackers are allowed to express themselves however, evidences from the field of play proves otherwise. Individual players play with so much caution as if at half time or full time, they might have to explain to the coach every action they took to the field of play. It is so frustrating to see our most creative, attack-minded players 'scared' to move or pass the ball forward, apparently brainwashed into passing it sideways. Statistics show that we have most possession per game between the top 20 Premier league teams yet in terms of through passes given per game, we are ranked joint 7th. It will also interesting to note that in, terms of touches in the opposition half, we rank second only behind Manchester City yet we have played more side and backward passes than any other team. Our strikers are not confident making runs behind defenses anymore because they know they won't get the right services. You can't blame them to be honest. All these means that Manchester United under Louis Van Gaal are organized efficiently, but don't take enough risk to create chances, take shots and ultimately score goals. That's why the attackers are finding it difficult to make headway.
It will be difficult to mention one attacker who has really succeeded under Van Gaal. So many top players have struggled with this system that you wonder whether it's the players who underperformed or it's the system which is making them look bad. DI Maria and Depay are two notable mentions, Martial who started brightly is now experiencing dips. Even Malta can't stand out consistently. In fact, the Spaniard's 4 goals and 3 assist came in his first seven league games. Gary Neville said that Manchester United were 2 quality signings away from winning the league. But on this evidence, there is no guarantee that the likes of Ronaldo, Bale and Muller would cause a significant change in the way Van Gaal approaches games, absolutely none.
People think it's insulting to call the football Manchester United play boring. It's not! In reality, most of our fans admit we are the most boring side in the Premier league. Most United faithful don't even get excited wanting to watch our games, that's how lifeless and joyless performances are. Wednesday's stalemate against PSV was United's fifth 0-0 so far this season, which means last season's total of four has already been surpassed. And we are only in December. Compared to his predecessors, there were three 0-0 draws under David Moyes and none in Sir Alex Ferguson's final two seasons.
To conclude, Manchester United can't afford to miss out on another big name coach after Mourinho and Jurgen Klopp. We simply can't allow Pep Guardiola (if he will indeed leave Bayern Munich this summer) to go to Manchester City. Louis Van Gaal has done well to study the ship, but I think he should be gone in the summer.
