Louis Van Gaal; the Julius Caesar of Football?

   Last night saw another lacklustre and diminishing united performance turn into yet another away defeat, and this time at the hands of a side who had just formed in 1999 a few months before United won that memorable Champions League at the Nou Camp. It is reminiscent of the Roman empire collapsing under the rein of Julius Caesar, Louis Van Gaal's United reign.  In the first season, there were signs of obvious improvement from the terrible previous season under David Moyes, but there were signs then of the paper papering over the cracks. This has transcended into this season, and Louis Van Gaal now boasts a shocking win percentage of just 49%, which is far worse than David Moyes, and this makes him the worst Manchester United manager in 35 years (Mail, 2016). 

(Louis Van Gaal looking like a broken and lost manager after loosing in Denmark.)

   However, before I start outlining where that Dutchman has gone horribly wrong, firstly I think its important to state what he has done right, which may be little but its still important nevertheless. Firstly, the signing of Anthony Marital, many mimicked Louis Van Gaal when he parted with nearly £60M for a relevantly unknown teenager playing his trade in a French league which is considered as fairly poor in comparison to the Premier league's quality. However since the first minute of his début against Liverpool, Martial has silenced his doubters and showed the football world that he will certainly not be the next flop and the next youngster to fail at United, and has scored an impressive 10 goals and 6 assists in 30 appearances for United. In years to come people will forget that he was indeed a Louis Van Gaal singing and many people thought it was another moment of madness, however all the evidence is there to suggest that Martial might very well one day, be amongst the worlds best. 

(Anthony Martial has been a positive aspect of Louis Van Gaal's reign.)

   Another big positive for me has been the way in which youth has extensively been given a massive chance this season, even though it may be a forced chance, we could have bought in January but instead Louis Van Gaal blooded youth and its great to see. Players such as Cameron Borthwick-Jackson, Guillermo Varela and Jesse Lingard have all hugely impressed this season when largely filling in the starting 11 due to a string of injuries, and it could be suggested that Louis Van Gaal has given the youth more of a chance than even Sir Alex Ferguson did back in his reign. So credit must be given where credit is due, and he has been brave in his fielding of many youth players this season, and these players will continue to grow and hopefully improve because of this trust implemented largely by the manager. 

   Furthermore, for me one of the main issues that I and many fans alike have with Louis Van Gaal is his lack of motivational presence or skills. He simply has none. Players want to see their manager on the sidelines giving them encouragement or issuing them instructions in time of struggle. When Untied conceded to Sunderland last weekend, Louis Van Gaal should have been on the touchline issuing instructions to his troops and trying to get a reaction out of them and reassuring them that there was still something left to gain from the match. But instead he showed no emotion and sat back in his chair working on his mystery novel in which he seems to spend most of the time he is on the bench doing. The best managers in current football, the likes of Arsene Wenger, Mauricio Pochettino, Jose Mourino and Jurgen Klopp spend the large majority of the time on the touchline encouraging and making players aware of what is expected of them and keeping them focused, and I feel this is sometimes the epitome of the reason why untied drift in and out of games and eventually lose. 

   The injury list for me is not to blame. Louis Van Gaal regularly blames united's bad luck and always references the injury list, but this is not a good enough excuse. In an era where injuries are a common occurrence and with the pace of the league, injuries are going to happen more and more and the manager in the summer should have paid more attention to this and not let as many players go as he did. I think its a very lazy excuse and in January more extensive efforts should have been made to sign players, even on loan in order to fill in for the injuries. The bad luck thing is the very epitome of a lost and finished manager. The constant references to bad luck and this being the reasoning of all the poor performances and results is the sign of a manager running out of ways to turn the ship around. Teams can have bad luck, but the ones in which normally have bad luck also comply this luck with equally good performances and you somewhat agree with the bad luck claim. However this is far from consistent with the terrible performances in which we have seen from untied this season, thus dispelling Louis Van Gaal's obvious bad luck message he continuously portrays to the media. 

(A beaten man?)

   Lastly, where is this this tactical genius that lead the Dutch national team to third place at the 2014 world cup? Because Louis Van Gaal certainly isn't that, very rarely this season have we seen a change of tactic and formation that has been executed well and lead the team to picking up points. This may very well be down to the team not being as good as Louis Van Gaal is used to, but in my opinion it is instead down to the fraud and the false tactical genius name tag that has been successfully applied to the Dutchman. Many fans and pundits were amazed that Marouane Fellaini, a player who for me wouldn't get into any other Premier League side was about to start 10 games in a row and perform badly in every one. At the same time leaving Ander Herrera, a player who normally makes a massive difference when he is involved, on the bench. Decisions like this and other strange tactical choices that Louis Van Gaal has made has led United to a massive demise and it very much looks like United are set to finish outside the top four and condemned to another trophy less season. Which is simply not good enough for a club the size and stature of Manchester United, 3 years without a trophy.

   Moving forward, I cannot believe that Louis Vaan Gaal has not yet been sacked. Any other organisation, company or employment position in the world he would have been relieved of his duties. This failure can only be put down to Ed Woodward, and his apparent lack of bottle, and his primary focus being on securing various sponsorship and money motivated deals for the club, which is great, but balance must be achieved between sponsorships and endorsements and actual team affair. It certainly looks as if Jose Mourinho will be arriving in the summer but for me that will just be the beginning of another transition phase in the club, and as we know, he is unlikely to be here for the long haul. For the sake of Champions League football and the reputation of the Football club I think action needs to be taken now, and to be specific, Louis Van Gaal should be removed of his duties with immediate effect.