Our Manchester United supporters here in the Football Transfer Tavern have been ordering their fair share of stiff drinks this week following their humiliating Champions League exit on Tuesday evening.
No matter what excuses are made, United should have been getting through a group that contained PSV Eindhoven, Wolfsburg and CSKA Moscow given the stature of their club and the money spent on it since Louis van Gaal’s arrival.
United supporters will now have to contend with the Europa League where any real Red Devils supporter doesn’t want to see their club belong.
Now having to get used to playing on Thursday – Sunday rotations, this changing of the regime has the potential to derail United’s league campaign whereby despite all the club’s troubles, van Gaal’s men are still in touching distance of first-placed Leicester City, just three points behind in fourth right now.
If you ask the United fanbase right now, many are split on whether Louis van Gaal should be getting sacked or whether he should be given far more time than David Moyes received in order to turn it around.
Today however, we’re concentrating on the former so here’s five reasons why it should be a case of taxi for LVG!
[ffc-gallery]
Click on the image below to reveal the reasons why Manchester United must simply sack Louis van Gaal.
[/ffc-gallery]
His signings haven’t been influential enough
So far in his United tenure, Louis van Gaal has overseen the largely expensive arrivals of 12 players that were supposed to turnaround the club’s fortunes following the mess made by David Moyes.
Those players are of course Ander Herrera, Luke Shaw, Marcos Rojo, Angel Di Maria, Daley Blind, Victor Valdes, Memphis Depay, Matteo Darmian, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Morgan Schneiderlin, Sergio Romero and Anthony Martial.
But how many of that list have actually produced the goods on a consistent enough basis to truly prove the Red Devils are really heading in the right direction long-term?
In the likes of Ander Herrera and Luke Shaw, we’ve seen flashes of brilliance while for the likes of Memphis, Matteo Darmian and Marcos Rojo, you have to ask whether these players are even up to United’s lofty standards set during Sir Alex Ferguson’s reign.
At the end of the day, when you spend around £250 million and the squad still has key deficiencies in it, you get very little sympathy that’s for sure!
His decisions have led to an unbalanced squad
A very defined point but the sale of Javier Hernandez is looking more and more like a terrible decision with each passing week that United fail to score on the pitch.
Yes, Chicharito wasn’t an absolute world beater in his spell at Old Trafford but he’s a natural goalscorer and when you consider that it’s only Wayne Rooney and Anthony Martial on the club’s books as first team strikers this campaign, this has left the squad unbalanced at the cause of van Gaal himself.
Deeming the Mexican not good enough, not to mention loaning out James Wilson recently, van Gaal has forced a situation on himself where he’s had to resort to naming the likes of 17-year-old academy striker Marcus Rashford on the bench a few weeks ago for the Watford away game.
The bigger problem is that it seems like it’s van Gaal’s way or the highway with Rafael and Victor Valdes also either outcast or sold on for the belief that they’re not good enough.
But when you’re calling on the likes of Guillermo Varela, Cameron Borthwick-Jackson, Axel Tuanzebe and Nick Powell in the first team squad over those players, it seems pretty wreckless.
United’s style of play isn’t changing any time soon
It hasn’t only been Manchester United supporters who’ve been criticising Louis van Gaal’s style of play this season with pundits and former players having a pop as well.
Quite simply, the Red Devils’ expansive style under Sir Alex Ferguson is slowly eroding at the expense of van Gaal and while we’ve seen that United are capable of standout stylish performances such as Southampton away, these have all been in far too short supply overall.
Winning is not enough at Manchester United; it has to be done in a certain style such as at Real Madrid but with Louis van Gaal in charge who is far too self assured in his beliefs, his style labelled as ‘boring’ doesn’t seem to be changing any time soon.
He’s started to talk like a fan far too much
They say loose lips sink ships and this was definitely the case last Saturday evening following the poor 0-0 home draw to West Ham United where van Gaal alluded to the fact that if the club had the likes of Sergio Aguero or Luis Suarez to call upon this term, they would’ve scored far more goals this campaign.
While it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to come to this conclusion, the problem is that van Gaal has started to make excuses while sounding like a teenage fan in the process rather than Manchester United manager.
At the end of the day, Ed Woodward has backed him with a huge transfer war chest and his players should be delivering far more.
As mentioned on our second slide, van Gaal has left the club with only two recognised forwards and so he should be looking at himself when it comes to the club’s lack of goals.
It’s hard to have much sympathy for a manager who seems to have been making it up as he’s gone along. You only have to look at the completely out-of-the-blue summer deadline day signature of Anthony Martial for £36 million to prove this!
Because Carlo Ancelotti is available right now…
Somebody who has been making a lot of noises in the press recently is currently unemployed manager Carlo Ancelotti who is reportedly open to the prospect of managing Manchester United.
A winner of the Premier League with Chelsea in the past of course, Ancelotti is the outstanding candidate to succeed van Gaal right now and like the Dutchman, he’s successfully managed some of the very biggest egos in the game. You only have to look at Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Cristiano Ronaldo to prove this!
Crucially, Ancelotti has preached an expansive game in spells at Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid while still keeping his teams tactically sound at the same time and this is what appeals to several Manchester United supporters.
While Manchester City are lining up Pep Guardiola and Ryan Giggs may flee elsewhere to land some managing experience, Ancelotti could see an opportunity open up for him to arrive at Old Trafford.
