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Louis Van Gaal has had to defend his tactics over the last week after Sam Allardyce branded Manchester United a long ball team after their recent draw at Upton Park. With Van Gaal often referring to his philosophy and his way of playing revolved around possession football, he didn’t take too kindly to the criticism.
Some might say that Van Gaal took the bait from Sam Allardyce as he was probably saying it tongue in cheek, knowing full well that United aren’t a long ball team. Personally I feel that Van Gaal showed a bit of fight in his press conference something which we’d like to see more often from the man in charge. It certainly wasn’t a sign of cracking under pressure though unlike Rafa Benitez and that ‘fact’ episode a few years ago.
With Manchester United a goal down with 20 minutes to go at West Ham, Van Gaal decided to change his approach and go to Plan B. This resulted in Marouane Fellaini coming off the bench and playing longer passes up towards the big Belgian. This paid dividends when Daley Blind grabbed an equaliser in added time as a direct result of a long ball towards Fellaini.
Every team needs a Plan B or even C if their preferred style of play isn’t having the desired effect if they want to take something from a game, no matter how far from the philosophy it may be. As a Manchester United fan I’d like to see fast attacking football played on the ground, especially with the quality of the squad. Although there is an acceptance that sometimes we may have to play the ball long to try a different approach but certainly wouldn’t want to see this all of the time.
Club legend and now TV pundit Paul Scholes has also been sharing his opinion of United’s style of play this year and claimed that he is “struggling to watch Louis Van Gaal’s team with any great enjoyment”. Scholes says this is mainly due to them playing too safe and not taking risks, as they would have done in Sir Alex Ferguson’s rein.
The majority of Manchester Untied fans would agree with Paul Scholes sentiments especially as the majority of United’s possession has mostly been in defence where the opposition are happy for them to have the ball. The pressure and play needs to be higher up the field where the creative players can have a much greater impact if they take the necessary risks to reap the rewards.
Manchester United are on the right path under Louis Van Gaal though in his first season in charge but he needs to start getting the best out of his squad as all too often they haven’t been at their peak. Its clear Van Gaal still doesn’t know his best eleven with the constant changing of formations and player positions but once he finds the right combination and acquires more top players to his squad during the summer then he can really start to kick on.
russcollins08 