A we all await the announcement that Dutch national team coach Aloysius Paulus Maria van Gaal, or just Louis for short has been named the new coach of Manchester United we cannot help having second doubts as to whether Manchester United have found the perfect match in van Gaal or if it is all going to go terrible wrong as it did with David Moyes.Is Louis van Gaal the right man for Manchester United?
Currently the bookies have van Gaal as their favourite to take over at Old Trafford after the World Cup with all latest football odds including the Netherlands at Betfair.
Now 62-years-old the Dutchman’s CV looks like hardly any other top flight manager with the exception of one or two, and with 23-years of experience behind him after coaching at Ajax Barcelona and Bayern Munich, as well as being in charge of the Netherlands twice no one could put forward the argument that he is not qualified to run a club as big as Manchester United.
In fact if you were to ask van Gaal where he would rate himself on a table of football coaches he would probably tell you that he is at the top after taking a team of home grown players in the Ajax team of 1995 to the final of the Champions League where they beat AC Milan 1-0 in Vienna.
Following that success he moved to Barcelona where he twice won the La Liga title before moving to Germany where he won the Bundesliga in 2010 with Bayern Munich.
All of this success has not come without controversy with the Dutchman famous for his dressing room spats and spectacular explosions when dealing with the media.
Manchester United now must decide if van Gaal is the man that can turn it all around for them after a season in which manager David Moyes never even made it to the end of before United ended up finishing in seventh place with a lack of European football to look forward to for the first time in 25-years.
Somehow though even if van Gaal is the right man to fix United’s problems we have a feeling that he will only take the job if he is given a hundred per cent control over who he decides to sign and also which players he decides to move on of which there is quite a few that will be shown the Old Trafford exit. He will also demand that former manager Sir Alex Ferguson keeps his nose out of affairs which to us seems hard to imagine and could be the spark that sees everything end badly.
We are also of the opinion that one of the clubs best players Wayne Rooney could have his nose taken out of joint when van Gaal changes how United will play no longer relying on the England player to be the work horse of the team preferring to perhaps rely more on Juan Mata in midfield while Rooney pays second fiddle to Robin van Persie in the Red Devils attack.
Just looking at van Gaal’s past you can see the problems he had with certain players such as Zlatan Ibrahimovic who branded him a “a dictator, with no sense of humour.”
Even Johan Cruyff had problems with him at Ajax and Barcelona describing him as having “Alzheimer’s” and saying “you have to wonder if he has one, or two, screws loose”.
The perfect van Gaal moment was before the Champions League final in Madrid when a reporter asked van Gaal if he thought Jose Mourinho was the greatest manager of his generation to which van Gaal gave him a steely eyed stare before replying: “He’s 10 years younger than me. So in his generation, you are right!”
Van Gaal likes to take young talent as did Ferguson at United and turn them into hungry winners, and on the way he likes to approach games van Gaal said:
“A coach always has to find a way to win,” he explained. “You also have to be convince your players and that’s part of the art of the coach.
“My philosophy is to attack, always attack – to win by attacking your opponent on the pitch. I believe you should always entertain the public.”
This type of attitude is certainly what Manchester United fans want to hear but they must remember success will come at a price that is bound to leave casualties by the side of the road.
