The Manchester United Thread

Theatreof Dreams said:
Ed van Steijn, who scouted Cristiano Ronaldo for Manchester United, admits he is hugely impressed with PSV Eindhoven winger Memphis Depay, and even prefers him over the Portuguese at the same stage in his career.
Click to expand...

Not that I'm criticizing Depay or anything of the sort, but at that stage, Ronaldo was still way too raw. It's how he crazily developed from then on that made him what he is. Depay has lots of similar characteristics, but it's how he'll develop from here on that will show how good he is..
 
Just a quick Sunday gossip round up for you guys linked with-

Memphis Depay - Sun
Garath Bale - Express
Lars Bender - Mirror
Danny Ings - Sun
Raphael Varane - Metro
 
Journos surprisingly good to us this morning on Sunday Suplement saying Evans has been harshly dealt with and that the Giggs and LVG thing was all just a load of nonsense by some people making something out of nothing. And that the main reason for our style of play is the lack of the belief in the defence. Also saying there will be a massive turn around in players.
 
B_l2MHoWIAAxcCp.jpg
 
Jonas Giæver @CheGiaevara Follow Ángelo Henríquez has now scored 19 goals for Dinamo. He's the Europe-based Chilean with the most goals this season alongside Alexis Sánchez.


Jonas Giæver @CheGiaevara Follow
Plenty asking about Ángelo Henríquez situation at Dinamo Zagreb/Man Utd, so I'll give a quick rundown:


He is on loan with an option for Dinamo to buy. Previous comments from Dinamo suggest that they wish to take up that option.

  • Comments from Henríquez' family in Chilean media a couple of months ago suggested Henríquez wants to go back to Man Utd to prove himself.

  • For a transfer to happen Henríquez would have to accept Dinamo's offer, regardless of what the arrangement with Man Utd is.

  • From what I understand, no decision has been made yet by Henríquez, which leads me to think he won't make a decision until the summer.
 
Pick one.

Win tomorrow or beat the scousers at anfield?
 
Last edited:
Beat the scousers and as a loophole to my own question draw tomorrow....
 
smith123 said:
Beat the scousers and as a loophole to my own question draw tomorrow....
Click to expand...
Good loophole :) Think we can do both tbh. Will be tough though, but we always beat Arsenal at our place. A draw would not be a bad result at Anfield tbh, they are certainly not unbeatable.
 
Good post i found in another Forum. This is my first thread here, I've been reading the Cafe for quite some time now and I've noticed alot of people still don't know how van Gaal likes to play the game. I'm not an expert by any means, but I do know some things van Gaal always has in his teams. Louis van Gaal is a teacher and as a Dutchy who knows him I see that he has pretty much tried to explain everything he did at Manchester United so far. He isn't fluent in English though so many don't get this, I hope I can explain this a bit better. Excuse the language, I'm Dutch and might make some mistakes. I'll happily edit any errors.

There will be NO TL;DR because van Gaal's ways are difficult. Please don't turn this into a thread about what you think of him, as there are enough threads to discuss that. I'd like to keep this thread purely about the tactical side and his team selections. You might disagree with his vision, but he's NOT changing so I'm just stating the facts. If you're not interested in reading all of this, please go and read another thread.

First of all: his philosophy isn't his playstyle. It's much more than this. It's essentially how he does his job: how he treats the players and staff, how he trains, which orders he gives to players and what his gameplan is. Louis van Gaal isn't fluent in English so 'philosophy' just about covers everything which he can't explain fully (he doesn't give out all his secrets either).

Louis van Gaal is a strong character. Players have to do what he says or you're not getting a spot in the team. If you're not pleasing him, he can be a nasty man. We've seen this with many players in the past, they collide with his personality or just can't get to grips with the way he wants to play the game no matter how hard they try. If you give everything and try to do as he says though he really is a nice man. He shows respect, always defends his players in front of the media and will never speak badly of a player in public. He's a real gentleman, he rather speaks about the team and not the individual. This might be annoying for us fans, but I'm sure the players appreciate it as they aren't getting burned after bad performances.

Rules:
His formations don't really matter too much as he generally plays the same and he still follows his own set rules. Some of his rules which his teams MUST have (he WILL NOT play without this, unless he has no choice):
-Left/right foot combinations. Unless you're a inverted winger, you're not getting a spot on the left side if you're not extremely good with your left.
-4 defensive minded players. He categorizes his players (I'll come back to this) and doesn't play without 4 of these.
-3/4 creative players. These are the ONLY players who can take risks in the team and lose the ball, the rest has to follow orders and keep possesion. These usually are the wingers, number 10 and the striker.
-In a midfield 3 he wants: a CDM, a box-to-box midfielder who's good defensively and a creative midfielder as his number 10.

Team selections:
He NEEDS 4 defensive minded players, this is the balance he keeps mentioning. We lack this. He bought players for a 352 but changed formation because it wasn't working and this left him in a spot of bother. With 352 he had 3 centrebacks+1 CDM, which is enough to please him.
With 4231 (his preferred 433) we got 2 centrebacks + Blind or Carrick. This isn't enough. He needs another midfielder, a box-to-box midfielder, who can bring him defensive balance. He tried Rooney, Fellaini, Mata and now Herrera but he isn't happy about them for this role. He will strenghten there in the mould of Strootman. The reason Fellaini is still playing is because Herrera is a creative player playing in his box-to-box role. We will never see Blind-Mata-Herrera as this would mean he doesn't have 4 defensive minded players. Having a defensive minded player at 10 isn't what he wants though so we won't see this next season.
This is why he doesn't fancy a 442 with wingers. He'd have 2 defensive midfielders, 2 wingers and 2 strikers and lack the most important player for him: his creative number 10.
The reason why he has fiddled around so much with players/formations is because he lacks the players for his own set rules, this won't be solved without transfers.

How he generally plays:
Apart from his creative players, Louis van Gaal plays every single position. He tells each player what they can and can't do. They must know these tasks from each and every teammate on the pitch aswell. Each player got their own do's and do not's which are based on their strenghts and position in the starting 11. Rooney/Blackett can give a long ball, Mata can give trough balls and Di Maria can do whatever he wants. They need to perform these instructions to perfection or they're getting dropped.

In a perfect van Gaal match everything is about the number 10. The team plays in service of getting the number 10 in an ideal position to set up a goal for one of his teammates. He wants to achieve this by keeping the ball (frustrating & tiring the opposition) and dragging the opponent around to find space. If this space isn't found then they shouldn't panic but stick to the plan and recycle possesion. Only when van Gaal sees it isn't working he switches to his plan B (which he always has). In our case that is Fellaini and a more direct style of play.

He analyses the opponent in extreme detail and comes up with a specific plan for each and every match. It doesn't matter if it's Cambridge, Swansea or Chelsea. We will set up in a way to counter their strenghts and exploit their weakness: we will adapt to all opponents whilst playing his possesion based style.

Fullbacks/defensive midfielders for example can't dribble because of the risk of losing the ball. Passing to one of them who is marked is pointless because they've got the instruction to pass it back. The players must analyse the situation: the player who can't beat a man is marked, the winger who can make an action is there, the creative midfielder is standing in a position where he can't lose the ball so I can't pass it to him, the weak spot we're targetting is there etcetera etcetera are all things a player needs to think about in a split second when he's got the ball. The whole team is thinking of attacking when a non-creative player is on the ball because of the gameplan, they aren't prepared to defend. The team is also set to attack when a creative player has the ball in a dangerous position where they can't lose the ball (close to de Gea). When a creative player has the ball in a position where they can take risks though, the team is ready to defend and it doesn't matter if say Di Maria loses the ball. That's why he doesn't like Herrera as a CDM/BTB, he has too much risks in his game. If he loses the ball when he's not 'creative' this disturbs all instructions given to the other players and we're extremely vulnerable to the counter.

This is why van Gaal always struggles at first because most players aren't used to his ways and some will never learn this. It's always a project for the long term though, so we won't see results immediately. It's a very hard learning curve to play how van Gaal wants as he's extremely demanding. Limitted players like Fellaini (no offense) who only got only a few strenghts blossom under him because they don't get tasks which they can't perform. They don't need to think and only do as they've been told.

Like I mentioned each and every player has a specific task for their position in the gameplan, which changes each game. That's why he sometimes decides to drop a player because he thinks he needs somebody else in his place with a different strenght for a specific match.

All 11 players doing exactly what he wants in every single situation is hard to learn, but if it's performed well it's a great style of playing the game. It's attractive, attacking football which the fans will enjoy. It's nothing like Fergie's style though so people will have to get used to it, we're not seeing the way van Gaal would like us to play though so don't worry just yet. This year is all about top 4 and laying the foundations for next year.
 
hopefully his project wont take too long he usually only lasts 3 seasons.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

FMBase

Beta

Resources

Back
Top