Mehmet Scholl is warning that Manchester United could be making a big mistake appointing Louis van Gaal as their next manager.
Reports from Sky Sports are claiming that the current coach of the Dutch national team is the new Manchester United manager and that an announcement will be made next week.
Scholl worked with van Gaal while he was at Bayern Munich and is warning over the way van Gaal works.
Scholl was the reserve team coach at Bayern when van Gaal was there and admits that the 62-year-old Dutchman can get results saying: “He’s very strict and severe. So the players just have the chance to follow him or they are out, and he takes the next players,” Scholl, who is now a TV pundit in his homeland, told The Guardian.
“He’s very good with young players. I think everywhere he was, he had some problems with big players and the staff.”
School explained the way he feels van Gaal will approach a new team of players adding: “There are 26, 27 players and he is looking for the 14 to follow him – 14, 15, 16 to follow. His thing is not the motivation [man-management]. He’s good in motivation, but this is not his main character thing.
“His thing is really working on the pitch – that’s brilliant. And that’s how the players learn. You know by yourself that if you learn from somebody you are curious, you want to learn more.”
Scholl however feels that players such as Wayne Rooney however may have trouble adapting to his approach.
“Some of the players, I can tell you, like Rooney, I don’t think he has to learn anything more. So that will be difficult for him if the coach says: ‘You have to do it in a completely different way. Whatever you did until now, change it.'”
He does not however feel Robin van Persie will have any issues with the new coach.
“The thing van Gaal teaches is the same thing van Persie learned from the very beginning. So there, I think, there will be no big problem. Of course, he is a big player but he is a Dutch player. That’s the thing, and the difference to Rooney.
“For the big stars, it is not easy to work with him but for the young players, he is brilliant. He is brilliant on the pitch and wants them to learn all the time – even the old players.”
Scholl also only thinks he will be at United for a short time, but during that time will turn the club around.
“He’s a brilliant football coach. The way he likes his team to play is absolutely. His main thing is to keep the ball, to be proactive not passive. He is a genius, he’s one of the best I’ve ever seen on the pitch,” said Scholl.
“I think, for the moment, he’s exactly the right coach for United and United will be successful again with him. That’s without doubt. That will come. The thing is, he wants a lot of things from the players and, for the players, it is not easy to satisfy him all the time and so after several months, one or two years, it gets less what the players learn.
“We’re not computers. Sometimes the brain is full. And he still wants [you] to learn, to learn, to learn, high level, every day. Is it annoying? No. It’s exhausting. They lose power. That’s what happened at Bayern Munich.
“And that’s why he often picks young players because they learn and learn and learn. I don’t know if he is working still the same. I just can tell you what happened in Bayern Munich.”
Manchester United warned over signing van Gaal
