It was much more of a straw poll than a scientific survey, but a group of supporters argued on Saturday that Louis van Gaal should remain Manchester United manager. Sadly for him, they were Manchester City fans. That is indicative. A Uefa Champions League winner with seven league titles is perceived as a liability.
Outsiders never get a perfect perception of dressing-room dynamics, especially in an environment when schadenfreude abounds. There seems something hubristic about the fall of an arrogant man but the sense is that Van Gaal’s players are constrained by his presence and might be liberated by his departure. Sometimes footballers do not need to hear a new manager’s opinions. They just need to be spared the incumbent’s voice.
United are in a form of meltdown. Saturday’s loss at Stoke City was their fourth consecutive defeat. It is their worst run since 1961. An ultra-organised team now commit elementary errors.
Take the colossal misjudgement made by Memphis Depay, when he attempted to head the ball back to David de Gea, sold his goalkeeper short and allowed Glen Johnson to pick out the goalscorer Bojan Krkic at Stoke.
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If Van Gaal is a strangely passive spectator who is not directly responsible for such monumental mistakes, it is hard to escape the feeling they reflect a wider breakdown in relationships, communication and confidence.
Depay has been touted as the greatest talent of his generation by Van Gaal. So far he is one of the biggest disappointments of the season.
He is an extreme example, but there is a pattern of underachievement, some of it exacerbated in United’s poor December.
Phil Jones, who had been solid under Van Gaal, defended dreadfully for Norwich City’s goals last week. Daley Blind, a protege of the manager’s from their time in the Netherlands, was exposed at Stoke.
Bastian Schweinsteiger, an ally from Bayern Munich, floundered in the Champions League defeat at Wolfsburg and has been suspended for their last three matches. Wayne Rooney was benched at the Britannia Stadium but, while he effected an improvement after his introduction, his form has been so poor it is hard to brand his initial omission a mistake.
Cast an eye across this strangely compiled, imbalanced United squad and it is apparent how few have performed to their potential under Van Gaal.
Poll: Is Louis van Gaal's time up at Manchester United?
Morgan Schneiderlin is not the player he was at Southampton, nor Matteo Darmian the right-back who invariably impressed for Italy. Juan Mata has never been given the chance to recapture the brilliance he displayed as a No 10 for Chelsea, when he recorded 20 goals and 25 assists in a season. Anthony Martial’s talent shone brightest before he had much exposure to Van Gaal’s tactics, training and ideas.
His philosophy has stifled some. His coaching has improved too few. Only Chris Smalling has reached new heights under Van Gaal, plus De Gea, who was developing into an outstanding goalkeeper anyway.
Even last season’s other success stories, the limited players who confounded expectations, Ashley Young and Marouane Fellaini, had reached greater levels with Aston Villa and Everton respectively. Even before they entered freefall, United seemed less than the sum of their parts.
The manager has been box office. The team have not. Van Gaal's honest, uncomfortable interview at the Britannia Stadium was revealing.
“It is not always that the club has to fire or sack me,” he said. “Sometimes I do it for myself.” Understandably, it was taken as a sign he might resign which, for one who normally has such vast quantities of self-belief, would be a remarkable admission of failure.
Yet whether or not the Dutchman decides Monday’s game against Chelsea is his last, it feels that, in a way, he is sacking himself. He has spent a quarter of a billion pounds and taken United from seventh to sixth.
As his regime unravels, as his mistakes and mismanagement become more apparent and come at a greater cost, it seems as though Van Gaal will prove the engineer of his own exit. And if one with genuine claims to greatness does go, the ranks of the disappointed will be populated by supporters of United’s rivals. That illustrates the scale of his, and their, recent failure.
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