Patrick Rees
Former Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal has revealed that he tried bringing Bayern Munich striker Robert Lewandowski to Old Trafford during his reign but the transfer failed to materialise as the Bavarians were reluctant to lose him.
After a dreary campaign under David Moyes, Louis van Gaal was roped in as the new Manchester United manager back in 2014 and the former Netherlands manager went on to spend big on players like Ander Herrera, Marcos Rojo, Luke Shaw, Morgan Schneiderlin, Memphis Depay, Matteo Darmian during his tenure.
His stay at the Theatre of Dreams, however, was short-lived and soon after his FA Cup glory, he was given his marching orders by the club’s hierarchy.
The Dutchman sure had his plans for the club and one of them was to sign Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski. Lewandowski moved to Bayern Munich in 2014 on a free transfer and has gone on to become one of the world’s best. Speaking of him, van Gaal has made a revelation that United hierarchy were ready to splash the cash for the Polish attacker but the deal failed to materialise just because the Bavarians were not ready to lose him.
“He is currently the best striker in the world. I also wanted to train Lewandowski and wanted to bring him to Manchester United,” Van Gaal told Bild (h/t Daily Mirror).
“The price was not a problem for Manchester United, but Bayern did not want to let him go.”
Under Louis van Gaal, Manchester United went on to equal Arsenal’s tally of 12 FA Cup honours and despite his idea of play, the Dutchman was praised for recruiting as many as 14 academy graduates. Although not each one of them, the likes of Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard have established themselves as Jose Mourinho’s favourites.
Speaking about the squad he had, the Dutchman said that many of his players were “unprofessional” in some sense. He says that he decided to send them emails about their progress but the players didn’t even open the messages.
He added: “I developed the digital tracker with my IT man. Each player was able to log in. So I gave everyone the opportunity to prepare for the conversation with me at home and to meet me in dialogue at eye level.
“That’s true, too. But this testifies to their unprofessionalism and I have then addressed them.
“But I already did that with the emails at Bayern. My conviction is that a full professional also wants to live professionally. Like Arjen Robben. He read the emails.”
Do you think signing Robert Lewandowski would have been a game-changer in Louis Van Gaal’s era?
