LVG Out Thread | BBC: Sacked!

Do you want LVG sacked?

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Speak said:
To an extent, this is true.

For an effective high-quality possession team, the squad is currently missing:
Wingers who can beat a man from standstill
A pass master who also has a bit of agilty and quick feet to side step a challenge (after all Xavi and Scholes didn't just pass the very second they got the ball)
A number 10 (or someone central who can sit on the ball, and almost play as a half-winger through the centre)
A number 9 who not only scores loads of goals, but has quick feet and can turn situations where he receives the ball with his back to goal into goals consistently.

Essentially, van Gaal is trying to force possession football upon a squad that lacks what's needed. Hence they pass the ball about aimlessly and have zero threat.
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Indeed. Which makes you think it's not all his fault. Just a few quality additions and the whole thing could come together. He's had opportunites to fix that but it hasn't worked yet. Sometimes transfers don't work out though, if you look at every manager's record. Plus, you can't really buy 7 or 8 new players in one window and expect it all to come together. It takes time.

I've had my vote at "sack him now" for a while but just trying to see another angle and reason why Woodward maybe is holding tight. Does he think that if we get a few world class players this summer, the LvG system can work?

Say we buy Stones/Laporte, Neves, Bale and Lukaku/Kane. Does that suddenly make LvG's system much better? You'd have to say yes.
 
Thisistheone said:
Indeed. Which makes you think it's not all his fault. Just a few quality additions and the whole thing could come together. He's had opportunites to fix that but it hasn't worked yet. Sometimes transfers don't work out though, if you look at every manager's record. Plus, you can't really buy 7 or 8 new players in one window and expect it all to come together. It takes time.

I've had my vote at "sack him now" for a while but just trying to see another angle and reason why Woodward maybe is holding tight. Does he think that if we get a few world class players this summer, the LvG system can work?

Say we buy Stones/Laporte, Neves, Bale and Lukaku/Kane. Does that suddenly make LvG's system much better? You'd have to say yes.
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It's pointless trying to be reasonable in this thread mate.
 
My biggest worry, is what managers are available now, compared to when his contract is up, in 1,5 years.
If he sees out his contract, the only option is Giggs, except if some big name loses his job or resigns.
 
Speak said:
To an extent, this is true.

For an effective high-quality possession team, the squad is currently missing:
Wingers who can beat a man from standstill
A pass master who also has a bit of agilty and quick feet to side step a challenge (after all Xavi and Scholes didn't just pass the very second they got the ball)
A number 10 (or someone central who can sit on the ball, and almost play as a half-winger through the centre)
A number 9 who not only scores loads of goals, but has quick feet and can turn situations where he receives the ball with his back to goal into goals consistently.

Essentially, van Gaal is trying to force possession football upon a squad that lacks what's needed. Hence they pass the ball about aimlessly and have zero threat.
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Agreed, BUT he's had players of this type and chose to get rid of them and not replace with better/equal:

Wingers who can beat a man from standstill Nani/Di Maria/Zaha could do this
A pass master who also has a bit of agilty and quick feet to side step a challenge (after all Xavi and Scholes didn't just pass the very second they got the ball) Schweinsteiger should be this but he's well past his best, something that looked pretty obvious before we signed him
A number 10 (or someone central who can sit on the ball, and almost play as a half-winger through the centre) Di Maria/Kagawa
A number 9 who not only scores loads of goals, but has quick feet and can turn situations where he receives the ball with his back to goal into goals consistently. Van Persie

His obsession with the 3-5-2 has been the problem in that he has not shaped the squad correctly and overlooked all of the above. The one thing he has been unfortunate with is that he's lost his two best fullbacks in attack (Shaw and Valencia).
 
Thisistheone said:
Last night a lot of our hopes seemed to be on Martial beating his man one-on-one to break them down, otherwise it would have been another dull night. Varela looked to overlap on the right as well in fairness, but essentially, the real sparks came from Martial beating his man.

Makes you wonder, if we had another top quality player on the right who could beat his man at will, does that change things? If you have Robben and Ribery on either wing then LvG can look good. Or if he has Memphis and Lingard/Mata on the wings, he looks clueless.
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And then LVG went and criticized Martial after the match.
 
Big Ben Foster said:
And then LVG went and criticized Martial after the match.
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I thought that was a bit strange. He really is hellbent on not praising one particular player. I remember last season when DDG was pulling out match-winning performance after performance, and he'd refuse to be drawn into how well he did, saying things like 'he's expected to do it'.
 
Big Ben Foster said:
And then LVG went and criticized Martial after the match.
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I never know what Louis is up to when he criticises our younger players even when they've played well. Is he just trying to keep them grounded...or does he have an (arguably) unjustified bias towards our more experienced players, even if they're often in poor form?
 
Just watched the post match video when he is discussing the wine after matches. He is taking the piss out of the media more than ever. His arrogance is higher than ever and I think he feels more comfortable than he has in the past month and a half. He really should stop fighting with the press though. His arrogance when winning is one thing but when we are playing like shit, he will always lose against the media. I'd rather see him boycott than respond to their childish mockery. I guess in a way he is doing it to divert the attention from the players. If it weren't for him press antics, the media would be attacking them.
 
SteveJ said:
I never know what Louis is up to when he criticises our younger players even when they've played well. Is he just trying to keep them grounded...or does he have an (arguably) unjustified bias towards our more experienced players, even if they're often in poor form?
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it's okay he doesn't either.
 
Big Ben Foster said:
And then LVG went and criticized Martial after the match.
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Barely.

"He started not so good, I think, but I said that to him and after the first 20 minutes he came into the match and he was fabulous,” declared the manager. “I am very happy that he is a Manchester United player because I think he shall be a great player for Manchester United for a long time.”
 
Thisistheone said:
Say we buy Stones/Laporte, Neves, Bale and Lukaku/Kane. Does that suddenly make LvG's system much better? You'd have to say yes.
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Well, no. It doesn't make the system itself better. Any team, under any manager, using any system - will look better if you add individual quality to a significant degree.

I get your point, though. And yes, by all means, if we do manage to land a handful of top class players this summer, there's no doubt that we will look better. However, this begs a few questions:

1. What about this season? Are we fine with losing out on CL football? Because if we don't bring anyone in now, that is where we're headed.

2. Are we able to land these targets? We couldn't land them last summer, it would seem.

3. How good do they have to be? Do we need Neymar in order to look half decent?
 
Chesterlestreet said:
Well, no. It doesn't make the system itself better. Any team, under any manager, using any system - will look better if you add individual quality to a significant degree.
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Precisely.
It seems that the LVG apologists are basically saying that if we spend another £300M (or simiilar), we can then have a system capable of beating the likes of Bournemouth.
A top quality manager will get a group of any players, to play better than what they are capable of, on paper. Fergie was able to do this. And Ranieri is currently do this.
An even better manager is then able to gradually find decent players (without spending £300M or any other large sum of money) and improve the team further. Again, Fergie demonstrated this over many decades.

In any case, LVG had the likes of Hernandez (who is doing well at his new club) and in particular Di Maria (who did well, in the attack...not so well in defence/possession). Man management is an important quality to have and some players need to have their egos massaged at the right time. LVG just isn't able to do this, and although he says he doesnt treat players like robots (or names on a piece of paper), with the exception of Rooney, I think that's exactly what he does.
 
Tasberry said:
My biggest worry, is what managers are available now, compared to when his contract is up, in 1,5 years.
If he sees out his contract, the only option is Giggs, except if some big name loses his job or resigns.
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Everyone is available at the right price. Moyes wasnt unemployed when we made the mistake of hiring him. Just because anothe manager is already employed doesnt make them unavailable
 
Chesterlestreet said:
Well, no. It doesn't make the system itself better. Any team, under any manager, using any system - will look better if you add individual quality to a significant degree.

I get your point, though. And yes, by all means, if we do manage to land a handful of top class players this summer, there's no doubt that we will look better. However, this begs a few questions:

1. What about this season? Are we fine with losing out on CL football? Because if we don't bring anyone in now, that is where we're headed.

2. Are we able to land these targets? We couldn't land them last summer, it would seem.

3. How good do they have to be? Do we need Neymar in order to look half decent?
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1. Definitely not fine with losing out on CL football again. But it's not the end of the world. Problem is, if LvG goes now, who comes in? Assuming Jose isn't available til summer and Giggs only wants it on a full time basic. Ed finds himself sticking (stuck?) with LvG and hoping he can pull off top 4 (worrying but possibly what is happening.)

2. I'd say we're capable of landing most of them, the only one I'm not sure about is Bale. But we signed Di Maria, Falcao when out of the CL and money talks.

3. Neymar, or even a Douglas Costa type. I like Jesse but he's sadly not top quality and can't beat a man the way Martial was doing last night or Robben and Ribery could for LvG previously. We can say he had Di Maria but you got the impression ADM just never really wanted to be here, at all.

Basically, if we had a prime Robben and Ribery in this side, LvG probably still looks the super manager we all thought he was before he signed with us.
 
Stack said:
Everyone is available at the right price. Moyes wasnt unemployed when we made the mistake of hiring him. Just because anothe manager is already employed doesnt make them unavailable
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True, but if Pep or Mourinho starts a new job this summer, i doubt they'll be interested in us one year later.
 
Tasberry said:
True, but if Pep or Mourinho starts a new job this summer, i doubt they'll be interested in us one year later.
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And buying them out of their contracts will cost us a lot.
 
As I said earlier, got my vote down as sack him but last night just made me wonder, the way Martial kept beating his man, if we had another top draw winger, on the right, would it suddenly start working much better for LvG? Or, if we didn't have Martial last night, how bad would it have been?

LvG's been awful & just looking at how Simeone, for example, gets so much out of his Atletico players shows what the best managers can do, but if we are stuck with Van Gaal, it might be that he needs brilliant wingers so we can open up sides.
 
Thisistheone said:
As I said earlier, got my vote down as sack him but last night just made me wonder, the way Martial kept beating his man, if we had another top draw winger, on the right, would it suddenly start working much better for LvG? Or, if we didn't have Martial last night, how bad would it have been?

LvG's been awful & just looking at how Simeone, for example, gets so much out of his Atletico players shows what the best managers can do, but if we are stuck with Van Gaal, it might be that he needs brilliant wingers so we can open up sides.
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Thing is LvG someone who can get the best out of his players or someone who can only work with the best players?
 
Stack said:
There are other managers around capable of winning trophies with United than just Pep and Mourinho.
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Who do you have in mind? Pochettino, Garcia, Simeone, Tuchel, Emery?
 
The problem with defending LVG saying he doesn't have the 'star' players to make the system work is that a) he had a chance to buy players to fit his system b) adapt the current system to fit the current players c) these players can play better than they currently are.
 
kps88 said:
"...after the first 20 minutes he came into the match and he was fabulous,” declared the manager. “I am very happy that he is a Manchester United player because I think he shall be a great player for Manchester United for a long time.”
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Scathing stuff. :lol:
 
fallengt said:
I gave up. For the fact that Ed Woodward sent him a bottle of wine after 8 winless games and one lucky win against Liverpool (Swansea and
Sheffield United too), he's not gonna get sacked no matter what.
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Dong Fangzhuo said:
The "extravagant wine" story bothers me more than it probably should. It just makes them seem a little too cozy and buddy-buddy with each other for my liking. Might be a weird thing to be annoyed about, but it just seems like EdWood might not find it so easy to turn around and sack him if and when the penny finally drops.
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It's a bottle of wine. Probably something that's become a habit over the last 18 months and, honestly, means less than nothing. They're employee and employer and it's quite likely that they do get on, as they probably have to spend a lot of time together. I really wouldn't worry about it become a matey relationship which will somehow influence Ed's decision-making on a business worth billions.

Big Ben Foster said:
And then LVG went and criticized Martial after the match.
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He really didn't. He just said his first 20 minutes wasn't good but he then became awesome.
 
sunama said:
Precisely.
It seems that the LVG apologists are basically saying that if we spend another £300M (or simiilar), we can then have a system capable of beating the likes of Bournemouth.
A top quality manager will get a group of any players, to play better than what they are capable of, on paper. Fergie was able to do this. And Ranieri is currently do this.
An even better manager is then able to gradually find decent players (without spending £300M or any other large sum of money) and improve the team further. Again, Fergie demonstrated this over many decades.
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Fergie actually relied on the many top players he had available. He was an amazing manmanager, definitely one of the best ever, if not the best. However in his last years there were already signs that we were heading in the wrong direction. The winning of the title in 12/13 masked many problems, but we were much too relient on Van Persie, who at that point arguably was the third best player in the world. I once checked and if you would subtract all points that we got from a Van Persie winner or equaliser from our total, then we would have had 20 points less in the league and would have ended 5th.
 
kps88 said:
Barely.

"He started not so good, I think, but I said that to him and after the first 20 minutes he came into the match and he was fabulous,” declared the manager. “I am very happy that he is a Manchester United player because I think he shall be a great player for Manchester United for a long time.”
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Is he trying to say that he had a word with Martial and suddenly he was 'fabulous'? Because I doubt he left his seat to talk to Martial. I could just be misinterpreting what he's saying there, though.
 
FFS. I keep checking this thread and the Dutch Dinosaur is still employed by Manchester United. Sack him. Enforce the we get any worse.
 
Orange said:
I once checked and if you would subtract all points that we got from a Van Persie winner or equaliser from our total, then we would have had 20 points less in the league and would have ended 5th.
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It doesn't work like that. If you remove even Messi or Ronaldo from the equation, it doesn't mean Barca or Real suddenly score fifty goals less per season. They'd lose X goals, no doubt, but not all of them. Someone else will grab a portion of those goals.

At a push you could argue that we wouldn't have won the league without RVP, but we certainly wouldn't have finished 5th. The ability to grind out wins was a characteristic of the whole team – and the man in charge, not least – it wasn't exclusive to one player.
 
Can't believe people still think he'll be sacked after we won. I think he is around for the foreseable future. At least until after the Chelsea match next week.:D
 
pocco said:
Is he trying to say that he had a word with Martial and suddenly he was 'fabulous'? Because I doubt he left his seat to talk to Martial. I could just be misinterpreting what he's saying there, though.
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I think he means that he's already told Martial that he wasn't very good in the first 20. As in, he's telling the press after he told the player directly.
 
Thisistheone said:
As I said earlier, got my vote down as sack him but last night just made me wonder, the way Martial kept beating his man, if we had another top draw winger, on the right, would it suddenly start working much better for LvG? Or, if we didn't have Martial last night, how bad would it have been?

LvG's been awful & just looking at how Simeone, for example, gets so much out of his Atletico players shows what the best managers can do, but if we are stuck with Van Gaal, it might be that he needs brilliant wingers so we can open up sides.
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You're revisiting your thoughts on LvG because a 50 million plus signing put in a good performance against championship side Derby??

We put out a full team and got the result with a hiccup along the way. I really don't see how he comes out with any credit from that game.
 
ZIDANE said:
The problem with defending LVG saying he doesn't have the 'star' players to make the system work is that a) he had a chance to buy players to fit his system b) adapt the current system to fit the current players c) these players can play better than they currently are.
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You don't need start players to beat Middlesborough, Bournemouth or Norwich.
I think any manager in the World would fancy his chances against the above teams, if we had Bale, Di Maria, Messi, Neymar, etc.
Right now our team is less than the sum of its parts (Fergie was the opposite) and I blame LVG and his tactics for this.
 
Chesterlestreet said:
It doesn't work like that. If you remove even Messi or Ronaldo from the equation, it doesn't mean Barca or Real suddenly score fifty goals less per season. They'd lose X goals, no doubt, but not all of them. Someone else will grab a portion of those goals.

At a push you could argue that we wouldn't have won the league without RVP, but we certainly wouldn't have finished 5th. The ability to grind out wins was a characteristic of the whole team – and the man in charge, not least – it wasn't exclusive to one player.
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Normally I would agree with this, but almost all of those goals were moments of brilliance from RVP, where he saved our butts by doing stuff that no other player in our selection would have been capable off. If they were simple tap-ins, then you would definitely have had a point but in this case he was just an unstoppable force and I seriously doubt we would have top 2/3 without him.
 
Orange said:
Normally I would agree with this, but almost all of those goals were moments of brilliance from RVP, where he saved our butts by doing stuff that no other player in our selection would have been capable off. If they were simple tap-ins, then you would definitely have had a point but in this case he was just an unstoppable force and I seriously doubt we would have top 2/3 without him.
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Yeah, he was brilliant - you'll get no argument from me there. But the flipside isn't really about RVP at all, but about the nature of the team and the nature of the league: We lost on goal difference the previous season - with no RVP. And City were much better that year than they were in Fergie's last season.

Simply put, all the evidence indicates that there's no way a United managed by Fergie would finish 5th in a league like that - zero chance. Again, we may not have won the title (which we ended up walking, by the way - we didn't rely on RVP for the finish, we cruised in - but that's where it stops.
 
Chesterlestreet said:
Yeah, he was brilliant - you'll get no argument from me there. But the flipside isn't really about RVP at all, but about the nature of the team and the nature of the league: We lost on goal difference the previous season - with no RVP. And City were much better that year than they were in Fergie's last season.

Simply put, all the evidence indicates that there's no way a United managed by Fergie would finish 5th in a league like that - zero chance. Again, we may not have won the title (which we ended up walking, by the way - we didn't rely on RVP for the finish, we cruised in - but that's where it stops.
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Maybe you are right, however I still think it would have become a very very hard season. We know that Fergie could make players feel like they were unbeatable, however this season proves how fickle player mentality is, how hard it is to balance that just right and how easy it is to go on a bad streak. Remember that we started that season with a 1-0 at Everton's, followed by two games in which RvP made 4 goals and got us 6 points. Getting 0 or 1 points out of the first three games might have been a blow to player confidence that even Ferguson would have had trouble handling. Fortunately that didn't happen.
 
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