WHAT HAS LVG DONE TO UNITED?
There’s no joy, no passion and no flair in Van Gaal’s team
SOME statistics can be misleading, such as the one that says Manchester United have lost only once in their last 17 matches.
To the casual football watcher, it’s a run of results that should hint at progress. So, too, should their position in the Barclays Premier League. United are fourth, only five points behind champions Manchester City.
But things are not always as they seem and anybody who has paid any attention to United’s play this season will know that any progress under Louis van Gaal has been hewn from organisation and sheer stubbornness rather than the progressive, fluent football for which the club have always claimed to be known.
Last Friday — two days before the ill-deserved point taken from a game at West Ham on Sunday — Van Gaal poignantly referenced the spirit of Munich.
‘We look for flair and pace and passion to play the game the United way,’ said Van Gaal, borrowing a line from a poem written to commemorate the 1958 disaster.
Suffice to say that after another stilted United performance at Upton Park, that search goes on.
One qualified observer described Sunday’s United display as ‘joyless’. It seemed appropriate. More worrying for Van Gaal, though, is the fact that the coterie of ex-players and United legends still close to matters at Old Trafford are beginning to whisper their concerns, too.
This is one of the things about United. It is similar to Liverpool in that once you have played there you never quite let go. Once a red, always a red. As such, those with their ear to the ground are worth listening to and the consensus is that Van Gaal’s team simply cannot continue to play like this if they wish to be afforded the patience and understanding the coach has admitted the team still need.
‘They are just so boring to watch,’ said one former player last week. That is a generalisation but occasionally it is hard to disagree.
The saving graces for United right now are clear but their hold on them is not. The fact United are in the Champions League places and ahead of Liverpool is important. They are fortunate to be fourth with the points tally that they have but, nevertheless, they do remain on course for achieving the principal objective given Van Gaal when he joined the club in the summer.
Whether they continue to play this way and remain in the top four remains to be seen. Comparisons have already been made with Van Gaal’s predecessor David Moyes but the up-to- date numbers are worth revealing — and they do not reflect well on this United team.
After 24 league games of a season that was ended by his dismissal last April, Moyes had taken four points fewer than Van Gaal. He had, however, won the same number of games — 12 — and his team had managed more shots on goal, on and off target, and forced more corners.
This points to flaws in Van Gaal’s use of his players. Moyes’s team were hardly heralded as one welded fast to United’s best traditions yet it would appear that they spent more time threatening the opposition goal than the team we are watching this time round.
On social media on Sunday Van Gaal’s United were being criticised heavily by their own supporters.
Chief among the concerns were the manager’s continued belief in a three-man defence — though that seems to be wavering — his use of captain Wayne Rooney in midfield, the refusal to use Ander Herrera at all and the relatively lethargic recent performances of record signing Angel di Maria.
All of these would appear to be part of the problem. United have no real pace, so do not counter-attack consistently well, something that has always been part of the DNA at Old Trafford.
Equally, United do not keep possession for long spells in the right areas, and so fail to build pressure as well as they might.
‘It’s not a question of playing with wingers or without or with three defenders or four defenders, it’s about the playing style,’ said Van Gaal on Friday. ‘Certainly, at the moment we could have done better in terms of ball possession.’
Criticism of United’s use of Marouane Fellaini as a target man for long passes late on Sunday seems unfair. It worked, and was also a tactic Van Gaal used successfully to turn round Holland’s World Cup last-16 game against Mexico in Fortaleza last summer.
Comparisons with his Dutch team are interesting, though. They were a pragmatic bunch, too. After the exhilaration of an opening victory against Spain in Brazil, Holland’s football was short on flair but that squad did not have the attacking talent that this United side possess and it is tempting to wonder what Ryan Giggs makes of it all.
Under Moyes, he grew exasperated at what he saw as a refusal to play on the front foot. Moyes’s perceived failure to use wide players well also frustrated the most famous winger Old Trafford has ever seen, yet Giggs is now assist- ant to a man who in certain areas again views the game differently.
One of Giggs’s prime roles is to talk United’s players — and Van Gaal — through the strengths and weaknesses of the next opposition.
Tomorrow the opponents are Burnley and during his preparation, Van Gaal’s assistant will have noticed one thing: Burnley are the only Premier League side to have played more long passes than United this season.
They may be in the top four but United are just so boring to watch