don’t get what you’re actually saying here because all you’ve done is kinda repeated what I said.
I was quite literally paraphrasing what you had written, before following it up with the rest of the paragraph that you, for some reason, have completely ignored. What's hilarious is that I literally called you out for ignoring points in the sentence before that one, but you've still managed to ignore the points made.
Here it is again for you, with the bits you missed in bold:
Your argument has contained factually incorrect points, which you're now ignoring, and there's another I didn't even address. A minute ago, a front three of Mata, Martial and Memphis, with Rooney playing in midfield, was replaced by Rashford, Martial and Lingard, with Rooney still in midfield, because of injuries.
The reality of the situation is that Mata was quite literally an ever-present feature of our attacking lineup, Martial was very much there on merit because of his fantastic start, and Rooney actually played a lot of the season up front, which is precisely how he managed to score 15 goals and end up as our second top scorer. Rashford may have been granted his debut in the Europa League because of a couple of injuries keeping players out of that game, but his prolonged inclusion in the side after the fact was not at all down to injury, but in fact because he was very much there on merit.
That seems like just a preconceived opinion you’ve made yourself which your entitled to but really if you think that i have this invisibility cloak i’d Like to sell you.
I honestly don’t know what you’ve been reading because you seem to have fabricated issues and said things I’ve not even mentioned. I honestly think you’ve just misread something or gotten the wrong end of the stick.
Also those comparisons with those managers are the system and intelligence in the way they play football, which I guess is something you’re struggiling to understand what I meant. Because they play a complex version of football and the more modern version you see stems from guys like Cruyff and Bielsa. It’s there blueprint and improved upon by guys like Klopp, Poch and Pep. The things they did, do with their teams is used by these guys yet people call them dinosaurs.
You clearly don’t like LVG and have either misinterpreted or just gotten confused with a lot of what I’ve said.
Anyway that’s fine you didn’t appreciate what LVG was trying to do or how it was a more intelligent version of football that would take time to implement.
It's not a preconceived notion that we played boring, shit on a stick football under van Gaal. It's the opinion of almost every United that watched them under van Gaal, as well as the opinion of pretty much every opposition fan that watched United under van Gaal. It's the opinion of so many, that it may well be considered objective fact that Manchester United played boring, shit on a stick football under van Gaal.
The first post I responded to from you was this:
A thing that also gets forgotten is we had a really young and untested frontline still finding their way in the game. At times they had moments of really really good play. I think their lack of experience and the lack of any real quality in midfield led to just this doubtful front 6 that didn’t seem to trust each other hence the very static boring football.
To which I pointed out that he actually inherited a very experienced frontline, and in fact, added experience to it. I also noted that any issues with personnel fall directly at van Gaal's feet because he made the decision to offload so many players in the time he was here.
You then responded to that with this:
In the 2nd season tho the one he was ultimately fired in. It was shortsighted of LVG to leave himself short handed and he has even sited the transfer failings. Also DiMaria probably would have been a large part of the plan going in to the 2nd season only for him to refuse to fly out for training.
To which I reasserted that any personnel issues, including Di Maria, were purely van Gaal's fault, with added detail and explanations why.
You then posted this:
My point is and still is that in the 2nd season we were relying on Depay,Martial and Mata as the front 3 with Rooney changing to an attacking mid, then after injuries we relied on Martial, Rashford and Lingard to perform and do things that even after two years with a different coach they still aren’t doing.
There movement wasn’t smart enough up front and when it was our midfielders never pulled the trigger. I’m saying that he left himself in a poor way, that’s his fault but the poor football wasn’t down to his instruction as many like to make out. But referring back to your original point about mentality in that 2nd year he’d left himself with a very inexperienced frontline. Which didn’t have the experience or know how to execute what was required.
This suggested that we had an inexperienced frontline due to injuries to the experienced Mata and Rooney (which in itself is not true as evidenced by the number of games played by both Mata and Rooney), and that said inexperienced frontline failed to perform adequately (which again was untrue, as evidenced by Martial being our top scorer and Rashford bursting onto the scene being just one goal shy of averaging a goal every two appearances, over the 18 he made).
I also pointed out to you that almost all of the players that struggled under van Gaal at United, have gone on to be noticeably better when not playing under van Gaal, and were noticeably better before playing under van Gaal at United, and that van Gaal himself made repeated assertions that the team were doing exactly what he wanted them to do, and that he was very happy with the way we were playing.
You then shifted focus away from this, and onto tactics, by posting this:
They didn’t play as a unit, they didn’t create the options and runs required, they also didn’t press as a unit. For me they all performed well but there is a difference between an individual performance and a unit doing the things to unsettle teams. Which they were to green to do or even really be expected to do.
LVG’s football is a lot more complicated than what say Jose has us do, there is far more intelligence involved in it. Those guys just simply weren’t ready. LVG’s system was dependent on the team doing their jobs. Also most modern managers have their players hold positions, stay in zones for example Pep,Poch,Sarri,Bielsa,Cruyff,LVG and many many more.
You start off by trying to discount the objectively impressive debut seasons from Martial and Rashford by claiming they didn't perform well as a unit in the way van Gaal wanted, despite them being the two standout performers from the season, both from attacking positions as part of the attacking unit. It doesn't make any sense.
You then follow that up by making a weird claim that van Gaal's system was somehow more complex than what Mourinho has our players do, because he, err...wants the players to stay in position, something you've gone on to reassert here.
I understand that Cruyff's style was considered somewhat revolutionary at the time, twenty odd years ago, but football's changed a lot since then, so I found it odd that you were including him in list of managers you were describing as "modern" alongside van Gaal and Bielsa. And no, there's nothing I don't understand, I'm just struggling to work out why you think a manager wanting his players to stay in position is somehow revolutionary in 2018. Why do you think every single manager in the game adopts a formation, rather than just chucking 11 lads on a pitch and telling them to do what they want?
This is why I pointed out that your point about "holding position" was incredibly broad, and also incredibly daft in the face of comparing 2015/16 Louis van Gaal with modern day Pep Guardiola. There are, of course, varying degrees in which managers expect their players to hold their positions, and in general, the trend is that managers adopting a more fluid approach manage teams that play more attractive football, whether they work on specific attacking plays and movements or not.
You've literally reached the point in your defense of van Gaal where you're claiming that you are the only one smart enough to understand how good he was and how it was not him, but literally everyone else that failed to make his system lead to attractive football.
And no, I don't like van Gaal particularly. Not after watching two years of the shite he served up following the year of shite we'd already endured under Moyes. However, I was very optimistic when he took charge, and even in the closing stages of his first season I was hopeful that we'd be comfortable title challengers in his second. The reality was that he was not only failing to take us forwards, but was actively taking us backwards, and as much as I loved the FA Cup win, it was never going to paper over that glaringly obvious crack.
How you watched two years of van Gaal managing United and have concluded that he just needed more time to implement his apparently infinitely complex system so it could blossom into a foolproof system of dominating matches in entertaining and high-scoring fashion I don't know. What I do know is that you've repeatedly shown an inability or unwillingness to actually engage with fact, so in the words of the immortal Duncan Bannatyne, I'm oot.
