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Is The Dutchman’s Time At Manchester United A Success Or Failure At Old Trafford?

Manchester United send a touching message to former manager Louis van Gaal after prostate cancer diagnosis.
Manchester United send a touching message to former manager Louis van Gaal after prostate cancer diagnosis.

Speculations of Van Gaal being replaced by Jose Mourinho have increased after the Dutch manager gave a cryptic response to a reporter when leaving the team hotel on Sunday, but it could well confirm that he expects to leave the club in the coming days. Louis van Gaal’s future as the Red Devils manager has reached a new level of insecurity as the Dutch manager was quoted as saying “it’s over” as he left the club’s hotel on Sunday in London.

If the FA Cup final game was indeed Van Gaal’s last game as United’s manager, the influence of his will surely be missed by many.

Van Gaal was confirmed to replace David Moyes as the new manager for Manchester United on 19 May 2014. He signed a three-year contract coming into effect after the 2014 World Cup. In his initial days as United manager, Van Gaal reacted to the poor form of his team by saying that it would take three years to take his United team to their full potential. Well, the club and fans didn’t want to wait that long obviously.

In his first season, Van Gaal led Manchester United to a fourth-place finish, three places and six points higher than the previous season, and returning back to the Champions League. 2016 began well for the Dutchman with wins against Swansea, Sheffield United and Liverpool, and a draw against Newcastle. However, United lost their form due to the injury spree in the team. The team still managed to end the season at fifth position in the league but not to forget the early knockouts in both the European competitions. But the FA Cup title was clinched after 12 years made up for a lot of it.

We all know how disappointing his time at Old Trafford has been and we all have criticized his methods and tactics at some point or the other but that doesn’t change the fact that he helped build United from scratch after the team had its strength and charm ripped apart in the 2013/14 season.

Sure, the game was boring and we didn’t win any titles except the FA Cup just recently, but what he did was to make the club accept that they now have to move on from the Fergie’s era.

The former Bayern Munich manager has spent almost 300 million euros in the two terms he has managed yet, and has been criticized heavily as such large spending isn’t actually the club’s tradition. But what people forget is that one has to invest a lot when rebuilding the team. And also, Van Gaal followed the club’s tradition of producing the young talent from their academy even though if it was majorly because the injuries forced him to do so, doesn’t mean his intentions were poles apart before that. Potential Red Devils stars like Marcus Rashford, Fosu-Mensah, Borthwick Jackson and few others were given chances and developed initially by Louis Van Gaal and unquestionably, that will be one of the things to be remembered. And the FA Cup victory, of course.

Written by Lakshay Khurana

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