Louis van Gaal | Manchester United manager

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He has made a huge mistake by not getting defenders in.

We shouldn't blame him for this though. Chris Smalling has cost us this game.
 
Señor said:
He's been shit so far.

13 points from 10 games is fecking awful, considering the ridiculously easy start we had.
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You underestimate how awful our defence really is. You can only do so much with the players you have, we'd have struggled with this lot even if they were all fit 100% of the time. The injuries have made an extremely difficult situation impossible.
 
Cheesy said:
I'd say Smalling's stupidity was probably more costly in the context of the whole game, even though I wasn't particularly keen on Rooney playing in a deeper CM role. While it's limited him, he's not been that bad to the point where it's cost us the game.
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When the match is done, I'd say check the stats to see how many times Rooney gifted possession to City and how many of City's attacks in the first half started with Rooney giving them possession.

On top of that, he doesn't understand the positional elements of playing CM and the team loses it's shape - something that alone can cost you a game against top teams.

Like I said - imagine if City were playing Aguero in CM...
 
FlawlessThaw said:
Sack him?
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No but it's definitely worrying. Needs to improve or he'll be out on his arse like Moyes sooner or later.
Count Orduck said:
He's doing worse than Moyes, but you can't actually say that or you get rounded on. Moyes was laughed at for taking the same players that won the league to seventh... LvG has taken the same players that won the league PLUS £150,000,000 in new signings to ninth...
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Yep.
 
Ole240599 said:
I think LVG's honeymoon period is over, this is not good enough.
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He's only half way through the squad rebuilding. If he can ship out Rafael and get a decent RB in, and get in any old CB with half a brain, then things will look a lot less fragile.
But January is a while away yet.
 
Count Orduck said:
He's doing worse than Moyes, but you can't actually say that or you get rounded on. Moyes was laughed at for taking the same players that won the league to seventh... LvG has taken the same players that won the league PLUS £150,000,000 in new signings to ninth...
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Yeah, but but but van Gaal has Moyes' issues to sort out, and lack of confidence, and brain farts.. or something.
Basically, if he fails, it's Moyes' fault!
 
JUPITER said:
He's dropped a clanger playing Rooney in CM in a game of this size, it's LvG's mistake and pretty much all our lack of shape and gifting away cheap possession goes back to that one decision.

You can't have a massive imbalance in a massive game at a key position and not have consequences.

It's most likely cost us the game.

No other team does this - can you imagine if City played Aguero in CM? fecking ridiculous.
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Given that Aguero doesnt have the passing range as Rooney i think that would be a stupid idea.

I have to ask are you a Moyes fanboi? It just seems in a lot of posts you are quick to write off anything LvG does as pointless
 
JUPITER said:
When the match is done, I'd say check the stats to see how many times Rooney gifted possession to City and how many of City's attacks in the first half started with Rooney giving them possession.

On top of that, he doesn't understand the positional elements of playing CM and the team loses it's shape - something that alone can cost you a game against top teams.

Like I said - imagine if City were playing Aguero in CM...
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Again, Rooney hasn't been great at CM, but he's hardly been that bad. His main fault has been pointless cross-field balls at times, which he's often culpable for when he's in behind the striker.

Aguero is a different case because he doesn't play in behind the striker to the same extent that Rooney does. Aguero is a striker; Rooney is something between an attacking mid and a striker.
 
Señor said:
?

He hasn't been great, has he?
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You can't look for a result after 10 games. We've been blighted by injury and a poor defense, so its unrealistic to expect us to light up the league after such a short period. We will finish in the top 3, get back in the CL and build on that.
 
I'd say again though the tactical set up to have basically the defence and Blind and then the attack in recent games hasn't helped at all. We just can't get the wingers the ball in the most threatening positions we could and in turn it leaves us open on the counter. Obviously the red card today has had a bigger impact but I'd say the set up didn't let us make the most of it when we had 11 men and has hindered us in other more recent games.

Other weakneses haven't been ironed out yet. The passing in defence is so poor, often playing each other in to trouble, in fairness the injuries aren't helping there.
 
Cheesy said:
This was always likely to be a tough game today and a loss (presuming it happens) wasn't entirely unexpected, but if things don't pick up soon then, yeah, questions will have to be asked. Luckily, none of our likely CL rivals are doing a lot better than us at the moment.
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Definitely if we have the same points per game ratio come January, big questions need to be asked. However I was always going to take the City/Chelsea matches with a pinch of salt, both sides are considerably better than us as things stand and don't have the same amount of injury issues.
 
kopviolator said:
True. But aren't we even worse off from where we were last year?
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At the moment, yes, but you could argue a lot of our overall football has been better and that we've shown some promising signs.
 
The Red Thinker said:
To some idiots here... he simply is mate. Just let them have their rants.
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It's not about this game, it's about his whole tenure so far.

We all knew our defence had major problems with injuries and general shiteness. Why buy another striker when we needed two maybe three defenders instead? And before anyone chimes in with 'who would you bring in', you're not seriously telling me that there aren't players better than Jones, Smalling and Evans?
 
Count Orduck said:
He's doing worse than Moyes, but you can't actually say that or you get rounded on. Moyes was laughed at for taking the same players that won the league to seventh... LvG has taken the same players that won the league PLUS £150,000,000 in new signings to ninth...
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That last part is a bit harsh. LVG doesn't really have that same side that won the league. Since then, we've lost Evra, Rio, Vidic and more, while Carrick and RVP look nowhere near their levels that they produced in that title winning season. The £150m part is fair though.
 
Raoul said:
You can't look for a result after 10 games. We've been blighted by injury and a poor defense, so its unrealistic to expect us to light up the league after such a short period. We will finish in the top 3, get back in the CL and build on that.
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Let's hope you're right but I don't see how my point doesn't also stand. He has been shite so far. This isn't the best we could have possibly done, especially that ridiculously easy start. In fact, it's more close to being the worst.
 
I wonder if he will move back to the diamond formation? Di Maria has been very ineffective in the winger role and we look less dangerous.
 
kopviolator said:
I'm not saying there aren't' signs of improvements (except for our defense, which is a joke) but to say that we weren't competing for anything last year and that now we are is not justified imo.
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Perhaps, although it's still early in this season.
 
Cheesy said:
Again, Rooney hasn't been great at CM, but he's hardly been that bad. His main fault has been pointless cross-field balls at times, which he's often culpable for when he's in behind the striker.

Aguero is a different case because he doesn't play in behind the striker to the same extent that Rooney does. Aguero is a striker; Rooney is something between an attacking mid and a striker.
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He's a striker that gets played out of position a lot.

Van Gaal playing him as a CM in a game this size when Carrick and Herrera are sat on the bench is utterly mental.
 
Didn't Moyes also have an excellent away record with us last year? LvG will have picked up 2 points from five matches on the road.
 
Unlike when Moyes was around, when our back it is to the walls, our players have not given up. I'm certain that under LvG we will make up the points needed.
 
JUPITER said:
He's a striker that gets played out of position a lot.

Van Gaal playing him as a CM in a game this size when Carrick and Herrera are sat on the bench is utterly mental.
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No, Rooney has played well in his deeper, attacking mid role on numerous occasions. He's not simply an out and out striker, and he hasn't been for a number of years, although I agree he should not be playing in centre mid.
 
Count Orduck said:
Didn't Moyes also have an excellent away record with us last year? LvG will have picked up 2 points from five matches on the road.
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Excellent is perhaps a stretch, but yeah, he was quite good away from home all things considered.
 
Señor said:
Let's hope you're right but I don't see how my point doesn't also stand. He has been shite so far. This isn't the best we could have possibly done, especially that ridiculouslt easy start.
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There's no such thing. Come back after 38 games and if we're not in the CL, then you could say he's been disappointing so far.
 
JUPITER said:
Most likely, yes.

It was mental to start a striker in CM against a top team, he's not a CM and he's not match fit. It's a massive, massive weak link and the team has collapsed under it.
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who said we are not competing, last year this time we were giving up totally already, come on united go get a punch!
 
Cheesy said:
Excellent is perhaps a stretch, but yeah, he was quite good away from home all things considered.
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Perhaps I'm wrong, but I had it in my head that for a good while we actually had the best away form in the league, barring the odd drubbing at one of the big teams' grounds.
 
Raoul said:
There's no such thing. Come back after 38 games and if we're not in the CL, then you could say he's been disappointing so far.
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You can't be serious, right? So what is your opinion on LvG's tenure so far?
 
Count Orduck said:
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I had it in my head that for a good while we actually had the best away form in the league, barring the odd drubbing at one of the big teams' grounds.
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We did at one point, but I don't think it was the case by the end of the season. He did alright away from home all things considered though.
 
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