Louis van Gaal | Manchester United manager

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We are decimated with injuries...lost Shaw earl
ArmchairCritic said:
This win has just as much to do with Van Gaal as the piss poor performance in the first 30 mins, he's not on the fecking pitch making these bone headed decisions and losing the ball in stupid positions is he? Smalling excelled in the back 3 once we settled, the formation was the right choice.
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totally agree. I just can't understand this vitriol against a manager who is decimated with injuries, lost Shaw early on and still had a tactic to try to make it work...which it did. People criticise him for writing notes...well...just perhaps..these notes are important at half time...unlike the people at home who think they know better. We beat Arsenal with a makeshift team against a team who plays good football. Take my cap off to him....because there is no way we would have won this under Moyes...
 
It wasn't a tactical masterclass but he did put the team out in the system that gave them the best chance of getting a result and it worked.
 
Will we ever get everyone back fit(?) It just seems like this nightmare will never end, and whilst it continues we're going to be up and down. :(

Despite winning today we pick up yet another injury. Hope Shaw is alright.
 
Jesus, some people are hard to please..! How 'bout crediting the man. He obviously set us up to soak up, arsenal - as we always do. It worked. Rode our luck quite a bit, but feck me - we've had no luck at all so far this season!
 
Hed Zitin said:
He's going to get either massive praise for this or massive negativity.
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The negativity was unreal and now people will just say he got lucky.

Raoul said:
This thread will go oddly quiet if we fluke a win.
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I would not even consider it a flukey win, he went into the game with a defence weaker than his netherlands defence! Shaw got injured early and even then Shaw was a doubt, he probably played him because he had no choice.

Against Arsenal what could he possibly have done that would have made us favourites to win? Nothing.

He decided like with Netherlands vs Spain he would defend deep, look to prevent the opposition scoring and hit on the counter to exploit their high line and with a bit of luck he might get a win, it was a gamble which paid off.

On the other hand we could have conceded and if we did then he would have switched it and gone more offensive.

The criticism has been unreal, Valencia is not a RB so with four at the back and the left back a Luke Shaw who only just got passed fit would have in itself been a risk, God forbid Blackett went left back in that defence.

Let this sink in, McNair and Blackett have hardly played any elite football therefore in that defence the only players who have played at the highest level for more than one season in that defence was Smalling and a Luke Shaw who we were pretty much forced to play and could have gone off at any point.

Had he gone four at the back then we would be Valencia, Smalling, Mcnair and Blackett, that would be unwise with our injury record.

Now take City, Chelsea and Arsenal then eliminate their first choice defence entirely (Rafael, Jones, Rojo, Shaw) and even a sub centre back (Evans), they would also struggle and they probably have better defensive back ups than us.
 
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Not happy at all before kick off with the formation and thought I was right for most of the first half

Delighted to be proven wrong and very ballsy from LVG
 
TBF a large portion of the poor first half performance could be attributed to individual errors in defence. Once we managed to tide over the 30th minute mark and the team got settled down, I thought it LVG proved once again that he got his tactics correct. Arsenal really struggled to break us down despite the possession they had.
 
What a shambles this season has been and yet we sitting pretty in that 4th spot. Kudos to LVG and his staff.
 
SirAF said:
Jesus, some people are hard to please..! How 'bout crediting the man. He obviously set us up to soak up, arsenal - as we always do. It worked. Rode our luck quite a bit, but feck me - we've had no luck at all so far this season!
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You give credit to LvG, and then in the same sentence say we rode our luck. Is that not contradictory?
 
We've lost one of the last seven (which included City, Chelsea, and Arsenal) and that was down to Smalling being a complete tit. Van Gaal has got us plugging away and keeping us in sight of the top 4 despite 40+ injuries, if we could just some players back and a run of games with a consistant side we'd be in the top 3 comfortably I think.
 
Good decision with the 3 at the back today. With so many defenders out, it's always a good option to play the 3-5-2 to have the extra man in the middle. Just took 30mins to adjust and get in the game, but you can't blame that on van gaal. Played the game perfectly after that though, Arsenal not making many chances (after the first 30), and us being deadly on the break. Basically, the same thing we did with Fergie at the emirates.

My one worry before the game was that Van Gaal would stick to his normal approach and look to dominate the game and the roles would be reversed, but he showed good pragmatism in adapting to Arsenal's style.
 
Sultan said:
You give credit to LvG, and then in the same sentence say we rode our luck. Is that not contradictory?
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It's not, as every manager needs luck in order to be successful. Fergie had feckloads of luck as well. Anyways, apart from the opening 30 minutes where we never got started, we didn't need to ride our luck or anything.
 
Xabi Alonso:

Each team I see (that is successful) has to be comfortable playing with three systems. They need to adapt to each game, depending on the circumstances. It is not about not being loyal to your identity. No, no, no. It is about knowing your strengths and showing your players what you need to do each game to prepare in the right way. In Liverpool, we had a plan for each team. Every game is totally different. Let me give you an example. This season [at Bayern] we have played with three defenders, sometimes four, sometimes five. You need to be able to manage at least three or four systems. It has nothing to do with betraying your principles.

lem8sh said:
Someday he might realise that we would be better served with Rooney up top, someday.
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Rooney was absolutely vital playing #10 the way he did tonight. Looked like he would've done brilliant up front too, but Mata, Herrera or Di Maria couldn't have played #10 like Rooney did tonight, so I'm very glad he didn't play up top.
 
bosnian_red said:
Good decision with the 3 at the back today. With so many defenders out, it's always a good option to play the 3-5-2 to have the extra man in the middle. Just took 30mins to adjust and get in the game, but you can't blame that on van gaal. Played the game perfectly after that though, Arsenal not making many chances (after the first 30), and us being deadly on the break. Basically, the same thing we did with Fergie at the emirates.

My one worry before the game was that Van Gaal would stick to his normal approach and look to dominate the game and the roles would be reversed, but he showed good pragmatism in adapting to Arsenal's style.
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How can you say that?

I get it, we won the game and got 3 points but playing 3 at the back caused us all sorts of problems. On another day we would have been 3-0 at HT. We should never play that formation again.
 
bosnian_red said:
Good decision with the 3 at the back today. With so many defenders out, it's always a good option to play the 3-5-2 to have the extra man in the middle. Just took 30mins to adjust and get in the game, but you can't blame that on van gaal. Played the game perfectly after that though, Arsenal not making many chances (after the first 30), and us being deadly on the break. Basically, the same thing we did with Fergie at the emirates.

My one worry before the game was that Van Gaal would stick to his normal approach and look to dominate the game and the roles would be reversed, but he showed good pragmatism in adapting to Arsenal's style.
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I would have thought, having an extra man in midfield meant more benching RVP than what how he set the team up at kickoff. Maybe you're talking about the CB position.
 
akash02 said:
How can you say that?

I get it, we won the game and got 3 points but playing 3 at the back caused us all sorts of problems. On another day we would have been 3-0 at HT. We should never play that formation again.
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Apart from the first half hour we did alright, they created more clear chances in the first 20 minutes than the rest of the game. It took a while for our defense to get used to the game but once we settled we were't that bad. Remember there was Blackett, McNair, Young and Valencia out there for most of the game, they wouldn't be near our first choice XI.
 
So, we win our last 2 games.
We are in the top (which is LvG's target for the season).
All while being decimated with injuries.
And people are complaining.
I honestly dont know what to say.
 
kouroux said:
I would have thought, having an extra man in midfield meant more benching RVP than what how he set the team up at kickoff. Maybe you're talking about the CB position.
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Yeha I meant CB. None of them are that great individually but having the extra man helps make up for when one inevitably fecks up.
 
The game plan was what we saw in the second half, wait for Arsenal to make that inevitable mistake and hold on. It was atrocious in the first half due to weak performances and individual mistakes. Ofcourse I'd prefer much better from Van Gaal and good football, but also however it may be.
 
akash02 said:
How can you say that?

I get it, we won the game and got 3 points but playing 3 at the back caused us all sorts of problems. On another day we would have been 3-0 at HT. We should never play that formation again.
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The formation wasn't the cause of our problems in the first 30 minutes, we just played like shit, gave it away constantly and basically did nothing. We played the same formation in the second half too you know, as it was meant to be played, just the players actually decided to show up which was the difference compared to the start of the game.
 
akash02 said:
How can you say that?

I get it, we won the game and got 3 points but playing 3 at the back caused us all sorts of problems. On another day we would have been 3-0 at HT. We should never play that formation again.
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It wasn't the 3 at the back that cause the problem, it was was the limited skill of our centerbacks and the superiority of Arsenals midfield. Putting an extra man in midfield at the expense of the defence wouldn't have served us because no 2 of our centerbacks are good enough to deal with what would have been thrown at them.

Nothing he did was going to be pretty today and we were going to need luck, he did what gave the team the best chance of winning the game and with a bit of luck he did.
 
bosnian_red said:
The formation wasn't the cause of our problems in the first 30 minutes, we just played like shit, gave it away constantly and basically did nothing. We played the same formation in the second half too you know, as it was meant to be played, just the players actually decided to show up which was the difference compared to the start of the game.
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Disagree completely. The CB's were all over the place positionally. At one point both Blackett and Shaw ended up at LB leaving a gaping hole in between. The defenders just don't know how to play this formation.
 
Who would have thought that the first away win would come at a place like the emirates. This season is just so unpredictable and crazy.
 
Everyone remembers the 1-0 against Newcastle where they dominated us in the first half and Schmeichel kept us in it till Cantona scored. You get games like this sometimes, our kids at the back just needed time to settle.
 
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