Under van Gaal he had quite a few games where he was commanding and composed. Never elegant but there was a good run where he just did the fundamentals really well and imposed himself on the game constantly, squeezing the pitch, maintaining the tempo, suffocating the opposition. There really wasn't anything new about his performance in the last game.
He would always throw himself into aerial challenges he didn't need to, like getting kicked in the head for the free kick in the last game, but then so did the likes of Terry, Vidic, etc. Unfortunately he doesn't quite have the body to withstand all that punishment. No matter how good he is he can't be relied on to play regularly so he can't be considered as genuine first team centre back. It's unfortunate but that's just the position he finds himself in.