Louis van Gaal is facing a true crisis at Manchester United.
Fans are unhappy with the way the team is playing – and now they have crashed out of the Champions League despite a seemingly easy draw.
The Dutchman is feeling the pressure as he tries to convince fans the season has been successful because United got knocked out of the League Cup at a later stage this year than last.
JOE sat down with the European football experts on BT European Football Show – Rafa Honigstein, James Horcastle and Julien Laurens – to get to the bottom of the problems at Old Trafford.
JOE: Obviously the biggest news this weeks is Man United going out of the Champions League. Did you guys expect that, coming up against a team like Wolfsburg?
Rafa Honigstein: I mean, I didn’t have a good feeling for United going into this game. I think they messed it up at home to PSV. I think having to go to Wolfsburg and win was always a tall order. In the past, you’d expect them to do it easily. But you look at this team – there isn’t really much there.
James Horncastle: Considering the hundreds of millions of pounds spent, they’ve weakened themselves in the transfer market through mismanagement from selling Di Maria, Van Persie, Januzaj, Chicharito – all players who could help the team score goals.
That’s been an issue for them in the Premier League this season. It wasn’t an issue necessarily for them on Tuesday, but they wouldn’t have been in the position they were if they could have scored goals against PSV.
I think that’s the big disappointment. Because you look at the composition of the group: it’s a group with Wolsfburg, PSV and CSKA Moscow in it. It’s not the kind of group that Man City have come through and has topped.
Julien Laurens: At the beginning of the competition, I don’t think you could have anticipated United going into the key, crucial game with a team that looked a little bit like a League Cup team. Powell for Mata is the most baffling decision that we’ve seen in a very long time. It made no sense whatsoever.
It made no sense when we were watching the game – it was one of Rafa’s games. It made no sense afterwards when you think about it. It makes no sense the next day. I just don’t understand how a manager like Van Gaal is capable of doing something like that.
Do you think Van Gaal pushed out players like Van Persie and Hernandez too soon?
Horncastle: That’s the thing with United, ever since Ferguson and David Gill went. Both of those personalities were unique. They worked really well together. Ferguson is someone from a different era, irreplaceable.
What United need, I think, is a director of sport. Someone who can come in and look after the recruitment side of things. Because I think that Ed Woodward has the same background as David Gill, but he’s working in a different era with a different manager.
We’ve seen transfer windows, the last couple ones, have been mismanaged really. We thought at the beginning of this one, in summer, that United were doing everything right. Towards the end of it, it seemed to fall apart, really.
Honigstein:Â They’re just one giant advert for having a sporting director at your club.
Is there someone you have in mind that they could bring in?
Honigstein: In theory, any former player who has a good eye, who can look at a player and realise that’s a good player and has a few connections abroad. The problem is you need to build that. The sporting director is just a guy who controls the network. But you have to have a whole structure of scouting in place.
I’ve heard stories that United had a list from Van Gaal with signings he wanted and then other players became available so they tried to get a hold of him but his phone wasn’t on during the summer holidays so they couldn’t make signings. It was just a big mess.
I think the reason why you haven’t seen harsher criticism is because United have gone from a club that never said anything – you never knew anything before a player would suddenly turn up with a shirt – to a club that’s constantly briefing and saying ‘yeah we’re in for this guy, we’re in for that guy’ and they’re keeping everyone sweet with that constant briefing. And that’s why the media haven’t gunned for them more.
The common subtext of all of Ed Woodward's press briefings: he thinks MUFC fans are morons who'll believe anything the club says
— Eugene Wong (@EWHK70) December 9, 2015
Horncastle:Â I think you’ve got to a stage where transfer windows don’t pan out as they’d want. The deals they want to do, they don’t know how to do them. So at the end of the transfer window where they begin to panic, they just pick up the phone to one particular agent – Jorge Mendes. And that shows the lack of contacts, the lack of nous in the transfer market.
I think Van Gaal has his faults and he should be criticised for things that haven’t gone to plan this season, even though the team is still in a relatively good position in the Premier League. But I think structurally, and the philosophy at the club needs questioning at the moment because we’ve gotten away from what traditionally believed to be United at their best.
Not only in the way they play, but in the way they assemble their teams. They used to bring lots of players through the youth system. They still do that – we’ve criticised the players they brought off the bench against Wolfsburg – but they’ve gone for this Galactico model which is a way to be a commercial success in terms of drawing in new sponsorship partners, but is it the right way for success on the pitch?
Got my hands on a copy of the Ronaldo movie. Jorge Mendes truly talks like a mad man and says "nothing is impossible" a lot.
— Killian Woods (@killianwoods) November 9, 2015
Do you think someone like Van Gaal has the ability to bring players through or do you think he’s more of a Galactico kind of manager?
Horncastle:Â I think he’s built his reputation on bringing players through at Ajax, Barca and Bayern.
Laurens:Â That was a long time ago though. That was in another life. I think he’s way past his best as a manager. Since coming into United I don’t think we’ve seen anything big from him. I thought his coaching last season was terrible, it’s even worse this season.
I think with the squad he has, everybody could bring this team into the top four, especially last year. This year, they’re doing okay but again in terms of what they’re producing, the style of play. For me, he’s not the right manager to take them forward. I think we saw on Tuesday again that his substitutions probably cost them the qualification. I’m not a fan at all.
For me, Powell sub was the last straw, how on earth can u bring Mata off for a guy who Nigel Pearson said wasnt good enough for Leicester?
— Pilib De Brún (Phil Brown) (@Malachians) December 9, 2015
Do you think he’s getting off lightly because he’s not David Moyes?
Laurens: I think he’s a big name so I don’t think he has the same criticism as Moyes. However, it’s changing and he’s getting more and more stick – and rightly so. The back pages on Wednesday were horrific for him.
But the way he came out on Tuesday in the press conference saying they’ve improved compared to last season because they went further in the League Cup – I think that’s an insult to every United fan.
I just think he’s not the right man. I would really find it baffling if they were not after Pep Guardiola just because he had another year on his contract.
You can watch Rafa Honigstein, James Richardson and other guests on the European Football Show on BT Sport every Sunday evening.
