If these are to be the final few weeks of Louis van Gaal’s stint in charge of Manchester United, then we can’t say we haven’t been entertained…
Not necessarily by the cut-throat, swashbuckling nature of his pass-it-sideways-and-see-what-happens brand of football, but by the sheer weirdness of the Dutchman’s fondness for selecting players out of position.
Take Daley Blind, for example, who has been an ever-present in central defence for United this season. As much as ‘Daley Blind is a great reader of the game’ is fast becoming the new ‘Peter Crouch has a great touch for a big man’, it’s obvious to most that he’s more of a makeshift centre-half than the next Nemanja Vidic.
Daley Blind has truly been found wanting at centre back today. It's all very well having a ball player but he's been yards off the pace…
— Dan (@BristolScholes1) April 10, 2016
Far stranger than Van Gaal’s Blind faith has been his obsession with sticking Marouane Fellaini at the heart of the United midfield. All too often the Belgian has been given permission to go and elbow-plough his way through matches in the middle of the park, selected ahead of ​*actual*​ midfielder Ander Herrera, the ever-slide-tackling Morgan Schneiderlin and the crumbling remains of Bastian Schweinsteiger.  He lacks pace, he can’t tackle and has the vision of a Texas Salamander, and while he does boast world-class chest control, you wouldn’t mistake him for an afro-sporting Zinedine Zidane any time soon.
Another man who has frequently fallen victim to the Louis Van Gaal out of position team selection lotto is Ashley Young. One of the on-field scapegoats of the David Moyes spell, Young deserves plenty of credit for the way he resurrected his United career at the back-end of last season. His return to form was one of the reasons Angel Di Maria’s £59.7m arse started collecting splinters on the United bench and the former Villa man played a crucial role in returning United to a fourth place finish last year.
His reward for this? Playing anywhere but his natural position on the wing this season. Not helped by the club’s injury woes, Young has regularly filled in at full back this season, where he has coped relatively well.
On Sunday, having only just returned to the first team action, Young was asked to play a new position. Replacing Marcus Rashford at half time, the 30-year-old was given the task of playing as United’s lone striker – quite possibly Van Gaal’s most ridiculous selection of them all.
All season, Spurs’ intensity and willingness to press their opponents has been a stand out feature of their play. As a result, their defensive line has regularly been quite high up the field, especially when chasing a goal.
https://twitter.com/atrickyb/status/719215426727723009
In the first half against United, things were different. Perhaps because of the pace of Rashford (supported by Martial) and his potential to exploit such space behind a pushed-up defence, Pochettino’s back line wasn’t quite as adventurous and sat much deeper than it had during recent weeks.
Now let’s be clear, bringing Young on wasn’t a complete disaster. Sticking him out wide and using Martial – no slouch himself – through the middle would have continued to make Tottenham’s defenders wary about how far up the field they ventured.
But instead, Van Gaal chose to select a player lacking in match-fitness to spearhead his attack in a crucial match against one of the league’s best sides (hardly the time to start experimenting) – a player who has rarely (if ever) played as a striker, and who has almost certainly never played there in complete isolation.
Although Spurs’ goal glut only came after 70 minutes, their second half display was noticeably more threatening as United struggled to find anything resembling an outlet. Young couldn’t be expected to hold the ball up against the likes of Toby Alderweireld and Jan Vertonghen. He doesn’t strike anyone as a stereotypical fox-in-the-box centre forward. Nor does he have the blazing pace that some of his team-mates have. So why, exactly, was he seen as the right man to lead the line at such a crucial point in Manchester United’s season?
Not for the first time in the last two years, the answer to that question is a simple one…
Only Louis van Gaal knows.
