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Gone are the days when every club in the world used to fear playing against Manchester United. In the last couple of years, the club as well as the fans has been disappointed. Being a United fan myself, I feel irritated with the ongoing form and style of play. There is no doubt that the injuries and exit of many experienced players has left the club humiliated on pitch in many number of matches both in domestic and European Leagues. But that’s no excuse for a world class club.
Every United fan or in fact, every football fan in general knew the threat of United in Sir Alex’s era. And many since then are blaming the managers for the downfall. Maybe it actually is appropriate to blame managers for a huge percentage of the downfall or maybe it isn’t.
It was very unfortunate for David Moyes as a lot was expected from him and that too pretty quickly. And his abilities as a manager were criticized in the only season he managed Manchester United.
Same can be said about Louis Van Gaal. One cannot expect any manager to deliver as high as Sir Alex did for more than 2 decades, in a couple of seasons. But again, even after spending huge amount of money which is, very unlikely for the club which used to hunt young and then underrated talents, there’s no justification to perform so poorly.
Some might even argue that the players are themselves not in decent enough form to perform according to United’s standards or the club needs more players who are either experienced or skillful in a particular position on pitch where the gameplay lacks.
Here are a few areas where United need to upgrade their game in the summer in my opinion:
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More Aggressive Attacking
Under the Dutchman, United’s style of play is very slow. We have seen our central midfielders playing the ball back towards the defenders more rather than playing it up the field. The midfielders need to step it up a notch to create more chances for the strikers to score goals, which has been the biggest flaw this season. Lots and lots of goals is what United need to get back on track. I’m sure they don’t want to be the club which cannot score goals against clubs like Crystal Palace and Middlesbrough.
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A striker should be the most preferred buy of the summer Transfer Window.
Many would argue that buying an experienced defender should be the top priority rather than buying a player to play up the pitch. But thinking logically, United has some really good defenders. It’s just that most them are injured at the same period of time. But once they are back fully recovered on pitch, the performance of the team will be much better than what we’ve been seeing for most part of this season.
A striker with clinical finishing is what’s lacking in the team the most. As I said in the above point, United needs lots of goals to get back to their winning ways but how is it possible when the strikers don’t have the ability to finish at least, every second chance they get in the back of the net?
Martial is a great young talent who can score even after getting past 2-3 defenders all by himself. But one cannot rely on a 20 year old player who obviously isn’t experienced enough.
And as far as Rooney is concerned, he is still managing to being used to play forward again.
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Van Gaal’s so called “philosophy”
Now back to criticizing managers, I suppose, the so called “philosophy” of Van Gaal doesn’t really work. Or just doesn’t work for Manchester United.
I know the success the Dutch boss has achieved in different countries and in European competitions managing some of the best clubs in the world, is very pleasing. I get it.
But what if his style isn’t meant for United or it just doesn’t fit in the Premier League. EPL, as we all know, is pretty different and more competitive than other leagues. It has been realized that United’s downfall is such that it will take a long time to turn this round. But that doesn’t mean that it comes down to such a level that even the teams who are usually in the bottom half of the table stop fearing Manchester United.
Van Gaal needs to change his philosophy and his way of gameplay in order to challenge other teams and pose a threat to them and be on par with the standards of this great club.
