Louis van Gaal

I'm still on Team Van Gaal, but personnel is not an excuse. I think Di Maria is the first sub that's made an impact this season. His subs are generally poor.

well our squad is generally poor tbh besides the players in the starting 11, even more so with injuries

I know there has been some strange decisions like players coming on for players in different positions that didn't need a sub coming in and such....but in general our bench is just pretty crap.

It's not really the options that are bad, it's the players he takes off. I forgot Fellaini's sub vs West Brom, that was a good one.

I want to also clarify that I support him. Atm, he's the right man for us.

He does have a lot of things he needs to address and things he needs to stop ignoring, eg persisting with this negative formation…

B-Mac wrote:

plus we have legit no real pace aside from Di Maria

i dont know but man city has got no pace in their side as well when aguero isnt playing. theres obviously jesus navas, but he is more like valencia and young and doesnt impact their game as much. and silva is he pacey ? no right ??

B-Mac wrote:well our squad is generally poor tbh besides the players in the starting 11, even more so with injuries

this
lvg is at least making shite players play well and there has been a couple of resurgences this season, career rivals. young, fellaini even valencia. These players are otherwise not at all our level. He is taking average players and extracting more out of them.
So perhaps this is the best they can offer. And once we get rid of the deadweight and revamp our squad especially in defense, he will go more daring in his approach and then we will see good football from the team as well.

I am sure its because of lack of faith in our cbs he is hesitant to change the formation now and hence putting a defensive one.

The results have been good recently and he has restored some sense of entitlement to success, which is important.

But in the playing style LvG so far imo has been a dissapointment, not to say embarassment.

Lumiere that has been his biggest highlights for me. Getting players like young, valencia and fellaini to perform well and instilling confidence in them.

Shame he can't do the same about evans who is beyond help lol.

Also giving youth a chance has been a plus as well.

Lumiere_Blanche wrote:

B-Mac wrote:

plus we have legit no real pace aside from Di Maria

i dont know but man city has got no pace in their side as well when aguero isnt playing. theres obviously jesus navas, but he is more like valencia and young and doesnt impact their game as much. and silva is he pacey ? no right ??

They still have players that can take people on though. Silva/ Nasri can still dribble past people. Wilson is pretty fast, but it's nothing unless there's a lot of space for him to run into. I know Januzaj has been bad and I'm not going to say otherwise, but if Di Maria is out this is the reason he has to play/someone like him. Even vs Stoke, we had 3 shots before he came on, his two crosses lead to another two shots in twenty minutes. It is simple things like that, it doesn't even have to be Januzaj, play Young in the front two sometimes, he did well there in pre-season. I see no reason to play two strikers, if we can't create.

Hapless_Hans wrote:The results have been good recently and he has restored some sense of entitlement to success, which is important.

But in the playing style LvG so far imo has been a dissapointment, not to say embarassment.

Was the play style ever this disappointing at Bayern?

Busby Babe wrote:

Hapless_Hans wrote:The results have been good recently and he has restored some sense of entitlement to success, which is important.

But in the playing style LvG so far imo has been a dissapointment, not to say embarassment.

Was the play style ever this disappointing at Bayern?

No on the contrary, even if results/tactics/man management was often frustrating, the playing style was something that would make you feel good in between.
Though maybe I rewrite memories in hindsight, maybe we were just as patchy and there were just spells of good football.
Don't really know what's going on there, maybe it's due to the 3-5-2

But I'm pretty sure our passing game had become very noticeably more structured, fluid and precise after a couple of months

RED wrote:Lumiere that has been his biggest highlights for me. Getting players like young, valencia and fellaini to perform well and instilling confidence in them.

Shame he can't do the same about evans who is beyond help lol.

Also giving youth a chance has been a plus as well.

he couldnt do it with cleverlol too. And rightfully shipped him off. If we can take a cue from that evans wont be here for long.

Hapless_Hans wrote:

Busby Babe wrote:

Hapless_Hans wrote:The results have been good recently and he has restored some sense of entitlement to success, which is important.

But in the playing style LvG so far imo has been a dissapointment, not to say embarassment.

Was the play style ever this disappointing at Bayern?

No on the contrary, even if results/tactics/man management was often frustrating, the playing style was something that would make you feel good in between.
Though maybe I rewrite memories in hindsight, maybe we were just as patchy and there were just spells of good football.
Don't really know what's going on there, maybe it's due to the 3-5-2

But I'm pretty sure our passing game had become very noticeably more structured, fluid and precise after a couple of months

I think it will get better if we buy some wingers, allowing us to permanently switch to a 4-3-3, just a little frustrating short-term. Even Liverpool stopped using the diamond, so I can understand his reasoning.

Luck finally ran out, the luck this man has been clinging onto in our unbeaten run (bar Hull/NewC). Dross football, posession smession, 3-5-2 stubborness.

Same amount of points as Moyes had at this moment last season.

He's had a good impact, don't get me wrong, Improvement of certain players being his biggest plus point. but he has been a shambles in terms of subs and starting 11 lately. Wins has papered over the cracks.

Today he was tactically outclassed by Koeman. They came, stifled us, subbed on Tadic at the end, got the win. He knew up front we can't create nothing, so he allowed us all the possession. Simple to play against once our attackers have an off day from bailing us out.

Boring, boring football. Players out of position, awful formation and subs.

Just piss poor.

Is it me or does it he doesn't really know what to do with our summer transfers.

Falcao not in the squad...
ADM doesn't play in his best position
Herrera dropped to the bench, who knows why
Shaw LWB, when the attacking part of his game is very weak

If he were to do the summer again, I think he'd do it very differently now. I understand he came in late, but it seems like very poor planning, like did he not know ADM's passing is erratic before he bought him?

He's had a stinker mate the past couple of weeks. Looks confused.

That unbeaten run papered over the cracks on what has been bizzare tactics by him.

And lets not even get started on his decision to not have Falcao on the bench

Wilson disnt even come on.

He brings on Fellaini for ADM as our last resort to grab a goal. Gotta laugh.

Clueless.

Is it time now to enlist the negatives of LvG ? We have been preaching about his positives and it looks like the negatives arent that left behind at the moment.

I've been criticising him for awhile

hmm.. I dont know man. Its just really painful.
Why start Blind if he has no intention of dropping carrick. Now he wont drop Blind either right cos he is Dutch, just like RvP being Dutch gets him an automatic spot each time. Moreover he leaves out the player who he should be thanking for saving his blushes last week, saving him getting embarrassed for the second time by a league 1 side. And he drops Falcao from even the bench.... and... ...
I am holding back with great difficulty from going absolute batshit angry. Trying to remain calm and easy.

Last week, despite us winning, is when my doubts and criticism towards him started to carry weight. We were truly dreadful against yeovil. Like next level awful. He played 3-5-2 against them too, like today, and we barely created a single chance against a league 1 team.

Same shit today.

Been the same for the past few weeks, my doubts have been growing, but the fact we were on a run, I was like meh...whatever, we're awful to watch but atleast we're picking up points and once our players get back, he'll ditch this awful formation and we'll improve. Did we? NOPE!

I doubt he'll change it because he seems to come from the same school as Wenger, the school of stubborness and trying to prove your way is the right way and to not admit your system is not working.

After today, my doubts have grown even more. Because regardless of our players back, regardless of having top players in the team, we look like we don't have a clue when it comes to penetrating teams and creating chances to score. It's all passing between defenders and De Gea, then a long punt up forward or aimless crosses *cough* Moyes style *cough*. Stoke level of football, not a team that cost over 200mill. It's dreadful to watch. And it's all down to LVG.

We're too dependant on a moment of individual quality, ruthless cinical finishing. This reverse fixture is basically us recently, get blitzed by opposing team, have De Gea perform heroics, we go the other end and score from 1 or 2 of our only chances.

is it cos he doesnt trust anyone to play right full back this refusal to switch formation ? Rafael is clearly not rated by him. Even when he was available he was on the bench lately. So I think we are actively in the market to buy an RB and then may be, at least we can hope that he has plans to revert back to a back 4.

I don't think it's that. I think he has a set formation 3-5-2 and he is going to do all he can to get the players to adjust to it, regardless of the fact that the players look uncomfortable with it.

He's had both Rafa and Shaw back and yet he still persist in playing them as wing backs. Today I think he played Valencia instead because he didn't want to risk rafa quite yet. Next week away he'll still pick 3-5-2 away to QPR, despite having Rafa and Shaw fit and available. (hope I'm wrong though)

I don't think it's the selection, I think he really, really wants to make 3-5-2 work. Like he had an experience with the Dutch and last summer and is doing everything to relive that despite it not working. I knew after we beat Newcastle it was them being really poor, I even showed the gif of them not standing in a line properly. It's the reason I didn't want to overrate Rooney as a CM, playing CM is more than just Hollywood passes. It's not Rooney's fault tbf, he's been great this season just misused at times.

LvG said he left Falcao out today because he wanted to have the ability to sub Shaw/Blind. I like Wilson and it's definitely too early to say he won't make it, but he really has been Macheda 2.0 so far. Again, I want to stress I don't want to say he won't make it but unreal faith in him which he doesn't warrant right now. I hope Van Gaal doesn't ruin Januzaj either, oh my if he missed the chances Mata did today.

Still want LvG in though, just to be clear.

RED wrote:And lets not even get started on his decision to not have Falcao on the bench

Wilson disnt even come on.

He brings on Fellaini for ADM as our last resort to grab a goal. Gotta laugh.

Clueless.

tbf I was happy with that substitution. Di maria was the synonym of shite today, despite him being played out of position. His performance was abysmal. And also we were already playing (for some months now) the Fellaini brand of football, so i thought its better to have him to make use of his broad chest and break them which he did too to some extent. He should have started today to counter their 2 physical CMs and neutralize them instead of mata. mata then did decent as well. So... yaa..

He/we are so lucky Spurs, Ars, Liverpool, Everton have been poor this season.

We had the same amount of points last season (37) at this exact stage of the season, having scored 1 more goal, yet I believe we were around 5th or 6th in the table.

He's not been good enough tbh.

I'm not 'LVG out' right now, but he needs to improve things drastically. We've spent a lot of money and today we were leapfrogged by a team who didn't spend an iota on players that we did and had many key players leave in the summer.