He's the club captain, it's understandable. How many other captains aren't pretty much immune from squad rotation?
People act as if Van Gaal invented this 'rule' as if before hand captains in football were fortunate to get a seat on the team bus.
LVG Out Thread | BBC: Sacked!
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He's the club captain, it's understandable. How many other captains aren't pretty much immune from squad rotation?
People act as if Van Gaal invented this 'rule' as if before hand captains in football were fortunate to get a seat on the team bus.
Maybe but it's a stupid tradition given the captain's role in football is very limited compared to rugby or cricket. One Van Gaal should feel no need to maintain. And Rooney is not exactly an inspiring leader of men in the mould of Robson or Keane.
Chelsea benched their captain recently if I remember correctly. In any case it doesn't matter, because Rooney has been unable to control the ball and lay off simple passes for months at a time, and that just can't go on, regardless of whether he's captain or not. Just because he scored a few goals in January, people seem to have forgotten the entire first half of the season.
How many captains aren't the obvious first choice at their position? It's rare.
How isn't Rooney?
Yesterday.
Rooney isn't our best striker and isn't our best attacking midfielder, at least he hasn't been in the last two years.
We don't play with one forward player though. This time last week who would you have replaced with Rooney in an ideal starting XI?
Seems extraordinary that all season people have both been complaining about the lack of attacking options and at the same time wanting one of the seldom attacking options we have not to play
Seems extraordinary that all season people have both been complaining about the lack of attacking options and at the same time wanting one of the seldom attacking options we have not to play
He's taken us from 4th back down to 5th, in a year Chelsea have dropped out of it. THAT is how I can say he didn't do much with what he's spent.
We must have set a record for home 0-0s! 1 in a season used to be a surprise, we've had about 8. Let alone the losses.
And did I mention 5th? And miles off top 3 in such a weak season?
I think the criticism with Rooney is that when he is playing the striker role he is rarely in a striker position. He goes out wide, he comes back to get the ball but never seems to be where you want a striker. His goal record speaks for itself, most of which is a result of his early career scoring, but he isn't our best option up front at the moment, as he is the easiest to defend against. In other roles, it is debatable whether he can play that role behind the striker better than say, Herrera or Mata. Based on that, you have to question why he is an automatic choice, because I would also say he is not a leader on the pitch.
The man in form should keep the shirt in my book
and a new manager who knows how to win in England
Yes very important!
Back to reality.
Same old Utd
Always boring
Always boring
He's had more than a season and a half to work out a way to play against teams like Watford - but hasn't. Instead playing right into their hands.
Big half time for him.
Big half time for him.
Business as usual.
Hope we win this game, but we look unable to capitalize every time our rivals slip up.
Hope we win this game, but we look unable to capitalize every time our rivals slip up.
he should have had an injury crisis earlier.
Play Martial on the left you fecking moron.
We won the game and saying "but you can't credit Van Gaal" is not right because a win is a win - so credit where it's due. That said though, I'm sure I speak for a lot of us that the football is just not convincing. We see signs of improvement but then it's back to square one.
The fecking miserable sods in this place.
if igloo was on par with a sunday league striker these days, we'd be talking about how embarrassing it was to lose 1-3.
lvg definitely dodged a bullet.
lvg definitely dodged a bullet.
Keep him till the end of the season, hopefully we'll get top 4 then negotiate a compensation package with him, let him leave on a high then bring in Mourinho. I don't think I can cope with another season of Van Gaal unless we bring in some absolute beasts.
If if if....bloody hell
It must be so difficult hating LVG but supporting Man United.
We very rarely dominate sides, despite having superior individual talent to almost all the other squads in the league. That's a huge indictment of LvG. We only seem to win games due to the odd flash of individual brilliance. That's an insane way to run a league campaign.
Van Gaal's philosophy seems to be to drag the quality of football down to the point where results are decided by the odd moment of skill. He gambles on the United team having more of that skill than the opposition. But it's such a mercurial quality that we end up losing far too many matches over the course of a season since no side we play is incapable of its own moment of brilliance. He's simply not a manager who can get the squad playing better than the sum of its parts. That's the metric by which all managers should ultimately be judged.
It's like buying a thoroughbred horse but insisting that all races are run on quicksand. The entire spectacle is cheapened, whilst the ability of the field is blunted to the point where the winner is decided almost at random. Van Gaal has had us running on quicksand all season.
Van Gaal's philosophy seems to be to drag the quality of football down to the point where results are decided by the odd moment of skill. He gambles on the United team having more of that skill than the opposition. But it's such a mercurial quality that we end up losing far too many matches over the course of a season since no side we play is incapable of its own moment of brilliance. He's simply not a manager who can get the squad playing better than the sum of its parts. That's the metric by which all managers should ultimately be judged.
It's like buying a thoroughbred horse but insisting that all races are run on quicksand. The entire spectacle is cheapened, whilst the ability of the field is blunted to the point where the winner is decided almost at random. Van Gaal has had us running on quicksand all season.
I thought Van Gaal had a good day.
You can't blame the poor performances of senior players like Blind, Herrera and Mata on him after we were all delighted with the team selected. We gave Watford far more opportunities though loose play than they created thanks to a poor selection or tactics.
His move to put Rashford out right changed the game and he showed more attacking courage by putting Lingard on. Then when we scored he added a more defensive presence in McNair which helped close up shop.
I've slammed Van Gaal plenty this season but credit where it's due. He earned his keep today.
You can't blame the poor performances of senior players like Blind, Herrera and Mata on him after we were all delighted with the team selected. We gave Watford far more opportunities though loose play than they created thanks to a poor selection or tactics.
His move to put Rashford out right changed the game and he showed more attacking courage by putting Lingard on. Then when we scored he added a more defensive presence in McNair which helped close up shop.
I've slammed Van Gaal plenty this season but credit where it's due. He earned his keep today.
Even when we win, the structural flaws in our play are overwhelmingly negative. We could've easily lost that 3-1 if not for a few lucky breaks and De Gea's usual heroics.
Hoping it was down to players being tired, 4 games in 9 days as one fan pointed out on Twitter and we won all of them with a lot of the same lads. Not like rotating teams completely for European competition. Yes we were poor, Blind was awful, but we made some changes and then suddenly looked like a different team. Hoping a large part of it was just players being jaded.
Games like today highlight why I think we need to change the manager. But I think he'll be here till summer so I'm just hoping we can put a run together and finish in the top 4... Only 4 point off Asnl now
Can't really fault him for today. It was our fourth game in the space of 10 days and we've won them all, which is a nice achievement with this squad.
I am not going to change my vote, but I would love to see LvG turn it around.
i can agree with all this except lingard... he was a non-entity, though to be fair he wasn't really on for that long. but to say he showed more attacking courage by adding lingard isn't really on.
Lingard has 3 goals and 3 assists in the last month, that's right up there with anyone in the squad. Van Gaal took off a central midfielder and put on an attacking midfielder while it was 0-0, leaving Schneiderlin on his own to defend the midfield in front of a young defence.
That's attacking courage whatever way you want to look at it.
Nice? More like It's astonishing and LVG deserves huge credit for it!
Yeah, I agree. Should have used a stronger word.
Yep.
We rode our luck and individual performances a ton when Fergie was in charge, so this kind of win is nothing new. Only difference is this might get us top 4 where as previously those flukes used to win us the league.
this. not a fan , but he did well tonight subs. formation, etc.
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