Many pundits, ex-players and supporters alike have recently expressed their sincere disappointment in in the way in which Louis Van Gaal has been supposedly setting Man United up to play. Manchester United has always been about fast paced, attacking football with the aim to always take opposition defenders on and exploit the wings with a high tempo style of play. However, recently it seems like the style in which the team has been playing could not be further apart from the Manchester United way in which we have known to love and admire. With four 0-0 draws emulating from the start of the 2015/16 season this shows the apparent defensive and largely conservative style of play that Manchester United have displayed thus far this season. A complete contrast from Sir Alex Ferguson's last draw under control of Manchester United, which ended against West Brom with a score of 5-5, a true representative score of a Manchester Untied era set on on playing entertaining and fulfilling football.
This style of play now seems a very long time ago, and as matches go by, even when Manchester United win, myself and fellow supporters are bored to tears at the conservative style and defensive front. The manager, Louis Van Gaal, when confronted with the questionable style of play seems to always say " we could have scored 3 goals" and that " we created many more chances than our opposition". But for me this explanation simply is not good enough. Any side can create chances and any side can create more chances than an opposition, however it appears that under the current management, he seems to be choosing almost to guard against losing matches instead of blowing sides away that we should be comfortably beating. At the 2014 World Cup, Holland under Louis Van Gaal played a dominative but attacking brand of football which led them to the Semi-Finals in an impressive style, scoring an impressive 15 goals in the tournament, the second highest total amongst. With this style of play that Louis Van Gaal implemented with the Dutch national team it had myself and other Manchester United fans full of excitement ahead of him taking over Manchester United and playing a similar style as to the one played at the 104 World Cup.
However, as we know things could not be more different, and as previously mentioned this season has seen fans become increasingly frustrated with the system and the boring style in which Louis Van Gaal has instead implemented. So where does the problem lie? For me its in the players that he has at his disposal. The attacking players simply are not good enough to play the system in which we as Manchester Untied fans are so used to. However some blame has to go down to Louis Van Gaal, he strangely let go players such as Javier Hernandez in the summer, himself blessed with a natural goalscoring aura and blistering pace. Also the sale of Di Maria, one of the best attacking players in Europe has to be questioned, and the possibility that more could have been done to convince him to stay and to find his place in the team. People may then form the argument that we have replaced these sales with Memphis and Anthony Martial, and yes I do feel that they will be huge players for Manchester United one day. But as of now, they are young, naive and not established players in which we need in order to be successful and play an attacking brand of football that will not only win games, but win in style.
The defensive side of performances has however dramatically improved and this must be recognised as a great feat by Louis Van Gaal. Under his predecessor, David Moyes Manchester United looked like a team who would always be leaky at the back, and conceded many goals every match, this has improved and Louis Van Gaal has transformed Chris Smalling into one of the best centre backs in the country, if not Europe. However he now needs to focus less on improving the reliability of attack and more on the level of threat that the attack can pose to opposition defences. I do feel that in January the manager must go out and by a fast paced, attacking winger such as Saido Mane or maybe even Gerard Deulofeu, who have both hugely impressed this season and the back end of last season. Both are proven Premier League players and I feel would hugely benefit the side and the attacking threat in which the side has. I also feel as if a proven world class striker would be a good purchase in January, as although Anthony Martial as previously mentioned has huge potential, I worry about the lack of competition and feel he could become stale. I see no reason why a striker like Karim Benzema, Alvaro Morata or Pierre Emerick-Aubemayang could not come to Old Trafford and bring the goals with them.
I do still have faith in Louis Van Gaal. He has without a doubt improved the teams fortunes and after all we are still 2nd in the table, and have a good chance of going into the last 16 of the Champions League, so things are not as bad as some people think. However something does need to be done about the way we play, less backwards passes, more gamble in the balls we put forward, a higher tempo and a more attacking DNA needs to be implemented. I wand the older United style back where the aim is simply to score more than the other team and to focus on attack and then defence. Louis Van Gaal will get it right and as previously mentioned as massively improved the defensive vulnerabilities, and we can look forward to a hopefully successful second half of the season.
