Basically what Empire said, but with the 3-5-2, I think he was just preparing for the situation in which we didn't get our targets. At the time, all of our fullbacks were injured and we had no cover. Did you want to play against Swansea with 3 center backs (Jones, Evans, Blackett I think?) and then Valencia? I don't think it was ever meant as the main formation, but he wanted to try it because we didn't have the personnel to do any different.
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That's where I come from: Go back to the roots. Don't change your identity just because you have had 18 bad months. Nothing more I wanted to say. And the LvG style doesn't look convincing to me.
OK, a bit more: The move to acquire Di Maria just doesn't make too much sense. If you want to be a super-possession team and you have a lot of money to spend, then go and buy a young dominating midfielder instead, like Pogba, Kroos, James, even one of the Bender-twins, just do something in that area. But don't buy a natural attacker like Di Maria. He won't help you help you with possession. And even if he does, then at the cost of his natural offensive power.
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He's not meant as the possession player. Even in a possession based system you need more direct players to add the cutting edge, be the one who takes risks and injects pace. Bayern have Robben and Ribery for example. Barca have Messi and Neymar. Those players aren't there to keep possession. They add a cutting edge and a balance. Di Maria is that player for us, every possession team needs one. If not, they turn into what Spain was pretty much. Possession but nobody who makes the cutting pass.
I understand what you mean, but Manchester United is not Sir Alex Ferguson. Fergie's style of play is what he wanted us to play and so we did that. That doesn't mean it's Uniteds set style. The only thing that is in our roots is giving chances to youngsters, and playing attacking football. Anything else is clutching at straws. Van Gaal has always had his style, it's been successful elsewhere and it was the building block for Bayerns period of domination now and coaches like Guardiola built on his style.
Have a bit of faith, we'll be fine. We're only a few months into his reign, have had a feck ton of injuries and even when fully fit, our defensive options are weak. Did you expect him to be perfect right from the start? There are no instant fixes, it takes time and you just have to be patient. There have been plenty of positive signs to show we're well on the right track.
You are right. Only time will tell. I'm a simply a football fan who is admiring certain clubs for certain things. And here I'm wondering whether this will have a happy ending.
Neverthelss, and I don't want to repeat myself, so please go back to my original post on this matter if you doubt this point: At Bayern LvG had a much easier field to work on than at United. The transformation you are hoping for won't happen within 6 months. Probably not even within 12 months.
I wouldn't say that is true. In his first season, he bought Olic, who, IMO, was a squad player at best at that time because he didn't want to play with Klose, Toni, or Gomez up front. Then, he only played with 1 right back and 3 central defenders (1 of them being a left back) for much of that season. He also had to deal with playing a central forward player out at the right wing because Robben faced several injuries. He also had to deal with an unhappy and unsettled Ribery during that time.
Given these challenges, he did very well to take Bayern Munich to a Champions League final and win the Bundesliga after Klinsmann screwed up the team. The only reason I would his challenge here to be tougher is because the Premier League's the most physical league in the world, IMO.
Well, he's had his 4 months more or less so we should be right in expecting significant improvement from hereon in. The difficulty from my perspective is that I simply see too many problems for that to happen anytime soon. The defensive problems are well documented but nobody seems to be paying much attention to our dismal scoring record. 16 goals in 10 games simply isn't good enough. It's not as though we never create chances.
People gush on about how much better we're playing than last year, but is last year really a yardstick to be measuring anything against? Could any manager in the world worth his salt not have got us playing better than last year? It should have been a given, especially in the light of the money we spent. We need to be not only playing well but regularly winning matches too - and soon.
As I've said previously, I remain to be convinced about Van Gaal but the time to be making judgments about his effectiveness as our manager (irrespective of his history) hasn't yet arrived. The halfway stage in the league is the earliest I'd make an assessment.
Since LVG has taken over we've had 35 separate injuries, it seems to be a factor the media consistently over look when criticising us.
Aye, been really dull this season... No, wait, they've been the best team in the league, performances and results wise.
It's a major exceptional circumstance. It has been with the club for a good two or three years now but still, it's incredible the lack of natural fitness from our players. This season seems especially bad for injuries. The sheer amount of them and frequency to me suggests our strength & conditioning coach/s (do we actually have any proper ones?) are pretty terrible at their job.
It will be a major plus if Van Gaal can sort out whatever the hell is causing this nonsense. I have my doubts though given even in Fergies latter years it appeared to be the same way.
Its definitely an engrained problem that by the looks of it has shocked LVG quite a bit. When you consider we've only played 11 games thats over 3 injuries per game! If we had the same injury record as say Chelsea or City then I'd hazard a guess that we would be doing a lot better than we are now.
A question to the people who are still defending, haven't been critical of LVG, and aren't yet, concerned, frustrated at the lack of results, progress etc etc etc. What or how long will it take before you start to get worried, annoyed, frustrated?
This is an inexact science. But in some ways, with Chelsea and City out of the way, the counter starts around about now. As has been suggested various times in the last few days, this Palace game is massive in the sense that a loss this weekend (which I see as highly unlikely btw) would really invite a lot of pressure and questions about whether we are making any actual progress, you know, the kind of progress that is rewarded with points.
A loss this weekend would be tough to swallow but I imagine if we have not seen any marked improvement as we go into January that is when I will start losing patience.
Then you get into the other debate: if not Van Gaal, who? After a few minutes of thinking about that I usually find Im inclined to put it out of my mind and get back to my blind faith that everything is going to work out.
A lot more than what's happening at present. IMHO the situation Moyes arrived into wasn't ideal, albeit we were champions. There were issues that needed to be addressed and he and the club didn't do that. The situation that faced LVG was worse because we had a group of players another year older, the vast majority of who hadn't developed in the previous 12 months, with an even more unbalanced squad than the one Moyes took over. And then we went and made the exact same mistake again and bought, in some cases, what we wanted and not what we needed.
So I've never thought we were going to challenge for the title this season, or even be top 4 certainties. It'll take time, but I'm pretty confident he'll get us there or thereabouts within his three years. The mistake, IMO, is assuming because we spent feckloads that we'll automatically be contenders. Our team contains a group of centre backs that are, in some cases, not good enough, constantly injured and have been, for the most part, in poor form for a long period. Our full backs, the few that we have, are either inconsistent, consistently injured, or inexperienced at this level and we have a midfield that, even allowing for all that filthy lucre we spent, still looks second rate. So in my view his job right now is to get us into the CL and properly overhaul this squad so that when he leaves the next man can deal more in evolution rather than revolution. Whether that happens with our new buying policy I don't know.
I will have an issue if he doesn't get rid of underperforming players.
The if not van Gaal then who point is most pertinent.
There's an irrational part of me that wants to see this ruthless streak of his, just so I know its still there.
A point that's probably been done to death already but is still as true as ever is this: All I personally want is to see where the team is going.
I can see it with Van Gaal. Even with less points, it's clear as day in comparison to us under Moyes. Hell even under Ferguson it was less clear what kind of side we were becoming.
So long as that stays the same, I'll be happy enough for at least a season or two.
I actually like watching us and generally enjoy our play 95% of the time. I'll concede that I'm perhaps alone there but it's a big factor for me.
I can see it with Van Gaal. Even with less points, it's clear as day in comparison to us under Moyes. Hell even under Ferguson it was less clear what kind of side we were becoming.
So long as that stays the same, I'll be happy enough for at least a season or two.
I actually like watching us and generally enjoy our play 95% of the time. I'll concede that I'm perhaps alone there but it's a big factor for me.
Yup. Louis is just a slow starter, like with you lot or Bayern. If one of the most experienced and renowned coaches in football, aside from being a specialist in instilling change in playing style and performances - can't overhaul the situation United finds itself in, then who can ? And perhaps more importantly, are they available ? I don't think so.
Everyone knew this was going to be major undertaking on multiple levels ranging from transfers to restoring the mentality, getting more out of underperformers and la di da, so the inconsistent displays thus far shouldn't come as a surprise. One might even argue that we're getting better as the season progresses. Drawing to Chelsea and being narrowly edged out by City while playing on an almost similar plane, as opposed to last season where we seemed tactically outwitted, bewildered and mentally ill-prepared vs traditional opponents is a major step forward in my book.
We're already witnessing positive changes and a semblance of a plan with him incharge, and that's reassuring after the uncertainties and foolery of last season.
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Absolutely. Those back to back humiliations in the big games last season were a real low point and we seem to at least have progressed from that. I was confident going into both our recent games we could get draws and we werent far off in the City game. So yes, we have made progress. I think we need to see some more, but I think we will. A month or so ago I noticed the big difference between this year and last year is during the week Im actually looking forward to the game, whereas last year it was more an extended feeling of trepidation, followed by dutiful stoicism for 90 minutes. I think a lot of people have made similar observations.
But its a results business at the end of the day and if we dont start picking up maximum points against teams like Palace - and especially in our forthcoming away games - then he is going to come under more pressure.
We don't even have fluidity in our play yet which going forward with the players we have had out on the pitch at times against some very poor opposition is staggering really. For now we can blame the defence I guess more in hope than anything else for our all round failures but we need to be seeing more for me.
Fair point. Was it Neville that said at United as a defender you have to expect to be left exposed and two on two quite often? It looks to me like our current system is designed to protect the defence somewhat (for all the good it seems to be doing). If we get a working defence in place I suspect we'll be able to commit more players forward and take more of the sorts of risks that have paid off for us in the past.
Did you not read my post? Louis van Gaal uses possession when he wants to defend so yes, once we are one or two up I would rather the team keep the ball.
To attack Louis uses a switch of play and a brutal change of pace, he also trains his teams to hit quickly during the transition before the opponent recovers.
The premier league season stated in the middle of August, some key players also came in nearer the end of the window. Middle of november is 3 months, training is one thing but putting it into practice when the pressure is on is something else.
He has had almost 3 months since the premier league started next week I think, the nature of the league requires adapting to also.
And yes, we should be expecting significant improvement from this point.
The lack of goals is not a problem because we create chances and one would think it's only a matter of time before they are put away but if it continues then of course it needs to be investigated.
We are not just playing better than last season, we are actually playing good football as of late, WBA was one of those games where the opponents had two shots on goal and scored two, I felt we played slightly better than Chelsea in that game and even against City I felt we should have got something late on, this for me is promising.
There is a lot of work to do but also there is a lot of work to do for Liverpool, probably more. At the start of the season top four was the expectation and I think we are looking fine for that.
Some people are saying that we are lucky that the rest of the league is doing poorly so despite our poor showing we aren't too far off top four.
But maybe the reason that our results have been so poor is simply because the league is somehow more competitive and difficult this year.
But maybe the reason that our results have been so poor is simply because the league is somehow more competitive and difficult this year.
We have to beat palace and win convincingly.
I sometimes wonder what effect a win on opening day would have done for us and our confidence. We came off an excellent pre season, whupping Galaxy 7-0, Madrid 3-1 and Liverpool by the same score. I think with the loss to Swansea we realised that not much had changed. Would it have made much of a difference, just one result? Who knows, I still wonder though if we'd have been a bit luckier this season with certain things whether this questioning the team would even be as prevalent.
In my view the only reason it's become more competitive is because there's been a levelling down, rather than up. Results in the CL would seem to back that up - the top teams in general aren't anywhere near the levels of the past.
Good point. Somehow people ignore this. It's not just a case of several top teams being poor, it's also a case of there being no more freebies on offer. Even Chelsea have been made to work very hard for their points.
Nah, that's not true at all. The likes of Liverpool, Arsenal, Everton and Spurs have been way below their level of last season with individual players not playing well at all and team performances have been bang average. They do all seem to be starting to get their shit together, though. So we can't rely on them continuing to drop so many points much longer. All the more pressure on us to get - and keep - our shit together, or risk ending up doing even worse than last season.
I'm actually willing to give him the whole season. I'm not even sure we'll make 4th, but I want this guy to have time. If in the first three months of next season, after two transfer windows, next summer obviously being the main one, and we are still lanquising in 6th, 7th or 8th etc then I will begin to think his 'philosophy' ain't going to work here. That would mean he is basically nearly half way through his project and one would expect to see a vast improvement.
I'd be happy to give a full season without doubt, even longer. I think he can do the job for us. His history, what he's done so far, what he says etc it all leads me to believe he has a plan. I don't think I ever felt that with Moyes.
The pressure will be beginning to mount, I think he's even mentioned over the last several weeks about playing better and deserving more but points is all that matters and without points pressure grows.
Another thing is if he was to leave, say after 18 months or whatever we end up in the same situation again with a new manager and new ideas to integrate into the team. I've not been completely happy with all of Van Gaal decisions but I do feel he can succeed here from what I've seen so far.
Jamie Jackson is saying Van Gaal doesn't want to buy in January, and will wait to do everything in the summer.
He knows nothing.
Well if Jackson said that, brace yourself for another 100m spending spree
meh, that's says a lot about how bad have been the other teams.
A season for evaluation would be minimum. In normal jobs, dont people get a 6 month probation or something?
Simple truth is that he spent more and is doing worse than Moyes. After digesting that you can then decide on what has been written ad nauseum about our play and performances and luck and decide on the blame level. However, the best comparison is points obtained from the league over a certain amount of games. We still look likely to concede in every single match and can often times lose to inferior teams just because they work a lot harder. I am not advocating for LVG to go, but we can't really be impressed either.
No more excuses, no more 'bedding in' period or learning new tactics - the next four games - three winnable home games and a visit to unconvincing Arsenal are the acid test for me - lets hope we can swim!
The club went all out this summer to arm LVG with the weapons he'll need to achieve at least a 4th place finish. We signed some fantastic players, including one of the top five on the planet. The pressure is severely on LVG to deliver results now and get us back into Europe and I have faith that he can achieve that. If he doesn't, the club will ask serious questions.
We really need to be taking at least 10 points from the next 4 games.
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