Who picks the team again?
United under LvG: verdict so far!
- Thread starter LawCharltonBest
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Most managers would love to join us especially with the money available.
If Van Gaal can't get it right after spending £150m then he should go really. If we played decent football and finished 5th, most fans wouldn't mind to be honest.
But the shit football just adds to the frustration.
Average. Inexcusable to not get top four with players at disposal. For one of the great managers of last 20 years he has hardly shown it especially when his tactics have failed. Huge pressure on him for sure and all those injuries didn't help but he may be somewhat responsible for that by implementing double training sessions. I think his job really will be lost should we not get top four, which currently I don't believe we will. Maybe an FA cup win buys him another season but I don't see us winning that either not on current displays. Too much tinkering and playing players out of position along with the "miserable" viewing looks like it may cost him.
No worries, mate.Won't there be a repeat of the same situation if the players are the problem? Most modern managers try to implement a system were the ball does most of the work instead of our famous 2 great wingers out wide creating opportunities for the strikers.
I apologize if I misunderstood your post.
I don't think any top manager would change the system as much as LvG had done, and then states 2/3 into the season he doesn't know his best team.
Okay Gomis rather than GomezI really wondered who the hell that was
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. The problem was that yesterday for only the second time this season he didn't Go-miss he went and scoredCould you imagine if we gave him £150m again, spent £300m and get Top 4 maybe. That amount of money I would be wanting a quadruple.
I agree with you, and think it's quite interesting. Interested in potential swing of fans (or not) in this direction. Would another poll be overkill? re: if no top4, sack or stick?
£150m spent, one of the highest wage bills in the league and we struggle to win against bottom half opposition. There's no idea, no progress, no cohesion. Instead of doing something he's saying feck Di Maria and Mata, hoof it to Fellaini.
Okay Gomis rather than Gomez
Gomis is a good player but really he should never trouble a team like Utd, he knows how to use his body and that's about it. The fact that we struggle to contain such a limited player is a big big concern.
At this point I don't know if I could trust him with that kind of money, and that may be the conclusion to me as to why I'm not sure if he is the man to take us forward. Iv said numerous times that I will fully judge him at the end of the season but I actually wouldn't be totally surprised if he was dismissed prior to the end, ala Moyes. Dare I say it but a convincing defeat to Liverpool could be curtains for him. And frankly he cannot say he has been hard done by at the current time.
I would mind struggling against bottom half teams so much we are struggling against mid table league one teams and that's just unacceptable.
If we finish top 4 or not I don't think I could cope with this style of football for the next two seasons.
I honestly believe the football we were playing last season was on par if not better than this season, this despite having spent £150 million and having the most expensive squad in Premiership history (or so I’m lead to believe)
Can anyone honestly say they’ve enjoyed watching us this season? Can anyone say what direction the team is heading in? Does anybody know his philosophy is? For me it’s simply a word he likes using a lot, but does it really have any meaning? If it did then surely he would know his best team, he would know our players weaknesses and strengths, he would get us playing attacking football. What happened to the way we played on tour? There are just far too many negatives attached to this season, and slowly it’s all starting to unfold and our manager seems to be at the heart of it all.
Agreed we made him look like a world beater yesterday. I just knew he would cause us problems all match when really he shouldn't.
We really do have some very talented players in this team. Write them down and you really do think...bloody hell, we should be challenging for the title. We might have recruited badly, or at least taken a punt and have been found out. Falcao, on form, would have been brilliant. Di Maria, given his relatively short great form, should have been the catalyst to everything creative coming good...more or less. Blind was a very good signing, solid, dependable if not world class. Rojo, I believe, will turn out to be a great defender, once he totally gets used to the Premier League. Mata is not going to be here next season. I kind of understand why Jose got rid of him.
This is LVG's final swangson, his final battle to do well in a league he has never been in. Jose always said that to win in the Spanish League, German, French or whatever other is not the ultimate challenge...the Premier League is the most competitive there is and certainly one of the reasons he came back
Can I say again, Bobby Charlton was a fool to discard him. He's what we needed, someone with Charisma, ego, me against them attitude no matter what. Sure he would have spent money, but more wisely I reckon. People said he wouldn't stay, although he is apparently just about to sign another four year contract with Chelsea. I would have preferred him for three years than nothing at all.
This is LVG's final swangson, his final battle to do well in a league he has never been in. Jose always said that to win in the Spanish League, German, French or whatever other is not the ultimate challenge...the Premier League is the most competitive there is and certainly one of the reasons he came back
Can I say again, Bobby Charlton was a fool to discard him. He's what we needed, someone with Charisma, ego, me against them attitude no matter what. Sure he would have spent money, but more wisely I reckon. People said he wouldn't stay, although he is apparently just about to sign another four year contract with Chelsea. I would have preferred him for three years than nothing at all.
The thing that bothers me above all is that with more than half a season gone we still haven't clicked as a team. That's the fault of Van Gaal and all the excuses for this don't hold up and are exactly that, excuses.
Liverpool can switch formations and play players out of position (Can for example) yet they don't look disjointed as we do. Southampton lost plenty of players and brought in new players like we did but from the start whose looked the better side? Just this week, LVG has been blaming preseason again. I'm sorry but were Liverpool not in the same competition in the US that we were?
Then the blaming of players. There's no denying quite a few of our players haven't been good enough, but it's his job to get them going. It seems that his only solution is to buy top players and if that were the case we could've just stuck with Moyes.
I think we still get top 4, but he really needs to get better and quickly.
Liverpool can switch formations and play players out of position (Can for example) yet they don't look disjointed as we do. Southampton lost plenty of players and brought in new players like we did but from the start whose looked the better side? Just this week, LVG has been blaming preseason again. I'm sorry but were Liverpool not in the same competition in the US that we were?
Then the blaming of players. There's no denying quite a few of our players haven't been good enough, but it's his job to get them going. It seems that his only solution is to buy top players and if that were the case we could've just stuck with Moyes.
I think we still get top 4, but he really needs to get better and quickly.
“I shall say to the players that it is very disappointing but, in the process of the development of our play, then it was a very good match,” the Dutchman added. “To play like this, so dominant, creating so many chances, you can hardly improve apart from scoring goals, but that is also a bit of luck."
So does it mean we were truly dominant and created chances galore? He makes it sound as if we dominated just like Barca did against Celtic, yet somehow managed to fook it up, because of the bad luck of the strikers.
So does it mean we were truly dominant and created chances galore? He makes it sound as if we dominated just like Barca did against Celtic, yet somehow managed to fook it up, because of the bad luck of the strikers.
Chances.
He is a delusional idiot, who thinks keeping possession and doing nowt with it means dominating a game. I am at a loss of words.
He is a delusional idiot, who thinks keeping possession and doing nowt with it means dominating a game. I am at a loss of words.
We can talk about the £150m all we want but the fact of the matter is the team was a complete and total mess after Ferguson and Moyes. There was definitely going to be a hefty sum of money to fix that mess over one season alone, and that's without the allure of CL football either.
With the money we brought in 4 key players in Blind, Herrera, Shaw and Rojo. Jury's still out on Di Maria and Falcao was a gamble that ultimately failed. With more reinforcement in the summer after LVG has a good idea of what this team needs, I believe we'll be right up there again.
I don't think we'll be spending another £150m this summer. About £60m or £70m probably.
With the money we brought in 4 key players in Blind, Herrera, Shaw and Rojo. Jury's still out on Di Maria and Falcao was a gamble that ultimately failed. With more reinforcement in the summer after LVG has a good idea of what this team needs, I believe we'll be right up there again.
I don't think we'll be spending another £150m this summer. About £60m or £70m probably.
I don't, I think he is bang on the money, whether it's coming from the forces that be at United, or from himself I'm not sure but I think it's happened.
Also something else been mentioned about the players looking like they are playing with fear, almost feeling it is more important to please the manger by making meaningless passes, rather than actually winning the game, not saying that's true but it seems to me they are weighed down, & over burdened in the way they play, will be interesting to see how they react now the chasing pack has got so close.
Didnt Sir Alex win the league comfortably with that squad and reached 2nd place on goal difference before, didnt we have world class talents in de gea, rafael, Jones at the time and other top class talent in smalling, evans (althoug he was of age), welbeck? Didnt we have world class players in the likes of Rooney, Rvp, Carrick? Didnt we have all the money in the world to buy new players, havent we add mata, fellaini, falcao, di maria, shaw, blind, herrera, rojo to the squad? Some act as if he picked up Burnley and had to be a title contender. Most of our players, LVG and Moyes have sucked all confidence out of them and have made them look like mediocre players, is that SAF's fault? He has done a terrible job with this selection who should get top 4 comfortably, it's not like Liverpool, Spurs, Soton got a top squad on paper, but their managers are just making something out of it.
He's 63 years old, I doubt this is a long term project in his eyes like many on here are suggesting.
None too complimentary from Jim White in the Telegraph this morning, especially about the Fellaini situation:
"… Swansea’s defence saw out the last quarter of the game facing little in the way of a sophisticated response from their guests.
Rather, United continued their recent tactic of spearing long balls to the far post in the hope that Marouane Fellaini might head them down into the danger area. Frankly, as a tactical approach there are Conference sides with more vision.
The dependence Louis van Gaal now has on his Belgian midfielder-turned-emergency-centre-forward is baffling. If it had worked consistently since he adapted the approach of sticking the mop-haired big man up front then the value in pursuing it might be more obvious. …"
Full article: http://bit.ly/1DaaQX6
"… Swansea’s defence saw out the last quarter of the game facing little in the way of a sophisticated response from their guests.
Rather, United continued their recent tactic of spearing long balls to the far post in the hope that Marouane Fellaini might head them down into the danger area. Frankly, as a tactical approach there are Conference sides with more vision.
The dependence Louis van Gaal now has on his Belgian midfielder-turned-emergency-centre-forward is baffling. If it had worked consistently since he adapted the approach of sticking the mop-haired big man up front then the value in pursuing it might be more obvious. …"
Full article: http://bit.ly/1DaaQX6
This season I wasn't expecting us to be the dogs bollocks but was expecting setting the foundations of a new team! What his done is built a team with dodgy foundations (defence) and now we are seeing the results.
If by a long shot we get CL next season he will spend big again in the summer but I'm expecting us grinding out results again!
This guy has a ego problem and just wants to prove everyone wrong even if it hurts the team in the process!
He needs to stop being biased and drop RVP who has been absolutly shite! Play Wilson and give him full backing and I can see him scoring more then RVP and Falcao combined!!
If by a long shot we get CL next season he will spend big again in the summer but I'm expecting us grinding out results again!
This guy has a ego problem and just wants to prove everyone wrong even if it hurts the team in the process!
He needs to stop being biased and drop RVP who has been absolutly shite! Play Wilson and give him full backing and I can see him scoring more then RVP and Falcao combined!!
LVG picks the team but that's not really relevant is it given the options. All of our forward options have been lacklustre (who would have thought RVP or Falcao could possibly be so crap this season). If LVG doesn't play RVP or Falcao up front, who do we rely on? Wilson? You could make the argument that Rooney should play up front, but that would mean dropping both RVP and Falcao, and who knows how that would have worked out either.
As far as our defense, we've tried everything, even Blind in the CB role. Jones, Evans and Smalling (to a lesser extent) have been absolutely wank all season. Rojo and McNair have been OK at times, as has Blackett. Rafael has been unavailable and Shaw disappointing. Ashley Young is our best back player at the moment, which says a lot about our team. But again, given the choices, you can't blame LVG's team selection.
If you want to blame it on the transfer window, the man cannot have possibly known how crap our defense was at the start of the season. He sorted our midfield issues pretty well. As far as January transfer window, that is always a risky move and the players we wanted and could realistically get were not available in January anyways.
I'll say this again, but any World Class striker should have been expected to take half those chances RVP had yesterday. And any decent team and defense would not have let those goals in, and would not have collapsed under Leicester, and would not have forced the team to play 1 man down for most of the game against City, and so on and so on. If Falcao was half as good as he was billed to be, we wouldn't have ended up with so many draws in the last 20 games. Remember how many easy 1v1s he botched?
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Yeah, I know people wanted a "proven" name after the Moyes debacle, but I was curious to see what Pochettino or another manager simply pushing a modern but standard 4-2-3-1 pressing and technically creative play would have done. I didn't think we'd spend more than 80-90, so figured we would sign an LB then choose one from Kagawa or Mata (Sell the other) to play behind Rooney, buy a left-winger to play opposite Nani and Januzaj fighting it out on the right and then an 8 of some kind to play next to Carrick.
We would then become like Arsenal. Handy at times, qualify for the Champions league, but never really competing for the title or the Champions League.
SAF had the benefit of Rio and Vidic and Evans all playing solid defense. He also had a younger, and absolutely on fire RVP who single-handedly won games for us. It was also the same team that had mostly played together for the past 6 years or so - the chemistry and setup was all there.
Our problem now is, not the selection, but the fact that our players simply don't care, or forgot how to play football. RVP and Falcao can't score to save their lives, and our defense doesn't know what defending is. You can have the best tactics and formation and players in the world, but if your players can't make a simple pass, or can't put a ball into an empty net, or be bothered to mark your man in the box or actually try defending, then we're going to lose. Collapsing 5-3 to Leicester just shows you how mentally weak our team is. The players as individuals need to dig deep and sort their heads out, instead of expecting the manager to do that for them. I mean, they're being paid how much?
Completing passes, having a decent first touch, knowing how to shoot on target, score when there's an empty net, these are all basic footballing skills that our so-called "World Class" players should be able to execute 100% all the time, regardless of tactics or formation or manager or whether they're lonely or demoralized or miss their mums and didn't get enough chips to eat before the game. What, the manager is not properly motivating them? Not getting proper training or chips before games? Boo-fecking-hoo, they're being paid how much? Learn to shoot and pass, then we'll talk formation and tactics. It's appalling how many easy chances every single one of our forwards have botched, or how horrid our defenders are. Simply mind-boggling.
Departed since Fergie retired 2 years ago:
Vidic, Evra, Giggs, Fletcher, Nani, Cleverley, Welbeck, Ferdinand, Buttner, Kagawa, Anderson, Buttner and Scholes.
Now I'm not disputing the lack of quality of some of those player but let's not pretend this is in any way shape or form the same squad that won the league with Ferguson.
Rio, Vida, Evra, Giggs, Scholes just got old, fair enough but in all thr other players Moyes and LVG just didnt get the most out of them and decided to sell and ditch them. Even with the older ones, it's not like they were still as good as they were before, you could argue that Evans was our best defender in SAF last season and Jones also belonged to the top tier of defenders in our team, just because since SAF's exist they regressed, havent been in form doesnt mean that he left a wank squad. It wasnt the best squad in the league but it also wasnt Burnley.
This is what I think. People seem to be so dismissive of the money at times because it's "not our money" but it's still a valid criticism of him, it's huge numbers to be spending. If it was a rival team spending this much and being as dull as United are to watch (with the players we have) most United fans would be pissing themselves.
As mentioned I just find United as a whole a bit dull to watch, there's just nothing in the team which is worrying and it doesn't seem to be close to being resolved really. I don't reckon LVG should be worrying about his job but at the same time people do just seem a bit suckered in due to previous successes. There's occasional good moments in fairness, Herrera vs. Swansea was a nice move but then it's not really that often stuff like that occurs. A lot of work needs to be done with the team and I can understand peoples frustration. Football is an entertainment and at the moment I'd say United are far from entertaining to watch.
I agree with you, it's been very very bad what the players are showing. My point is, you cant put that down to SAF. We have far better players (on paper) dan we did then but all of a sudden al of our players just look very ungifted. I've said it so ofte , I really donr know why Rooney is supposed to be world class or why Mata is still supposed to be a creative no 10, it looks like the majority just completely lost their form and confidence and that's worrying..But even if we buy new playees, I wouldnt be surprised if the same thing happens again.
This is what worrys me tbh
So what you are saying is that they all got older, worse, retired, forced their exit or are still here and a shadow of what they were but its still the same squad and Van Gaal should have it firing like Fergie did.
if he has another 150m to spend in the summer, we are looking at a total of around 367m pounds sterling spent since fergie left the club. and NOTHING to show for it.
Yeah but people will have you believe that £400m is the minimum amount we need to spend to get into CL.
Shocking, isn't it? £220m since our last title and we cannot even get top 4 while clubs like Juventus and Bayern rebuilt their teams with much less.
No, that group was a small part of the squad then who werent really vital for the team anymore, maybe in terms of leadership but our most important players were de gea, tafa, evans, carrick, rooney, rvp imo, the others were legends tho and important figures. Other than that, what has happened with our important players and squad players, you cant make SAF accountable for that, that's the work of LVG and Moyes.
De Gea - World Class
Rafael - persistently injured and completely unreliable.
Carrick - has been great this season but two long injury spells severely limited his influence.
Rooney - not had a great season either up front or in midfield.
RVP - 2 years past his best.
And I'm not making SAF in any way accountable. I put the blame at Moyes' door. It was all set up for him to make the squad his own with 3 or 4 key transfers in Summer 13 which he could then have followed up with another 3 or 4 in Summer 14. But he didn't. He bottled it big style and set us back years and now Van Gaal is having to work with the situation it left him. It would have been very difficult to add any more last summer and there clearly wasn't the correct players availiable in January.
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