With Manchester United's FA Cup semi-final win against Everton (2-1), it just looks like Van Gaal is coming around the bend and all might not be lost after all. A place in the Champions League though beckons for United and the Red Devils must still wait for Arsenal or Manchester City to slip and City just might with their distraction in the Champions League Semi-final with Real Madrid this week while Arsenal slipped with a draw with Sunderland. Manchester United will face Crystal Palace in the final of the FA Cup, in a twist of fate this is a repeat of the 1990 FA Cup final when United beat Crystal Palace 1-0 after a thrilling 3-3 draw that started Sir Alex Ferguson's trophy marathon accumulation.
United will have a mouthwatering tie with Leicester City in their next game in the league, this is a make or break for either one, with United trying to garner points to get a Champions League spot and Leicester aiming to get closer to wrapping up their first Premier League Championship.
What is interesting is Van Gaal's grooming of youth from the academy with players like Marcus Rashford hoping to bring back the glory days of United with others like James Weir and Tim Fosu-Mensah among others flowing from the United academy
To date Van Gaal has given debuts to these players and are still using them sparringly- 14 players from the academy since 2014 :
2014 : Jesse Lingard, Tyler Blackett, Saidy Janko (sold to Celtic), Reece James, Andreas Pereira, Paddy Mcnair and Tom Thorpe (sold to Rotherham United).
2015 :Cameron Borthiwick Jackson.
2016 : Donald Love, Joe Riley, Marcus Rashford, Reegan Poole, Tim Fosu Mensah and James Weir.
However Van Gaal's dealings in the transfer market might be his undoing with Bastian Schweinsteiger and Memphis De Pay having failed miserably and following closely behind them is Marcos Rojo and Danny Blind. Morgan Schneiderlin and Matteo Darmian have not exactly lighted up the Premier league with their performances.
Selling Angel Di Maria and putting him in a straight jacket role at United and selling the bundle of energy called Chicarito of Mexico to Bayer Leverkusen was a disaster. Chicarito is making waves with Bayer and is now a prolific scorer for them and he did well in the Champions league with them. Chicarito to date (real name :Javier Hernandez) has scored 26 goals for them this season and his latest was just a few days ago in a 3-2 win against Schalke.
That would really hurt for United fans because you would think that United would be linked with a striker like that and the fans will all be anticipating for United to sign a striker like him at the end of the season, instead United had him all along and if they decided to ship him out because of the abundance of striker options you could forgive Van Gaal, but trying to turn midfielder Feliani (who is not even doing well in the midfield position) into a striker was a grave mistake and this has cost United's season.
Van Gaal gives the impression that coaching and managing is like Playstation with him moving them with joystick precision and changing the position of players and accepting it as the best option as long as its his. To be fair he has won trophies at Bayern, Barcelona and Ajax, but the cracks seem to appear at Bayern his last club before United, but a reprieve at the World Cup with the Dutch national team in 2014 was what got not just United fans excited, but even neutrals.
The performance in Brasil was sizzling, but this is a national team set-up, ideal for a tactical fanatic like Van Gaal with players already established names and getting regular football at club level, tactics was all Van Gaal had to work on, add to the fact he was working with his country men with no cultural barriers, you can see that sometimes a national team and a club set up in another country with strong culture might just be different (Conte please take note).
United are now at a vital stage, more vital than even the time when David Moyes was not working out, that was clearly a mistake. David Gill the former CEO left United at the same time as Sir Alex Ferguson and this was the key, it was too much of a transition for two such strong and positive influence to leave and bringing in bean counter Ed Woodward a British accountant who though has been at United for a few years now still does not understand the nuances of the football transfer market and how as Executive-Vice Chairman to handle transfers, his commercial dealings though are his forte, e.g. agreement with finance company SwissQuote.
It might be the right time for United to hire a Technical Director and it can be a great link to the commercial side and the football side of matters, it will need someone who is familiar with the business and technical aspects of football and it might be better if this was a British candidate and someone who maybe has played for United.
Gary Neville who can articulate well and is well versed with matters outside football could be the right candidate. Being a former United man he could be the saviour of United who are in the midst of tussling with their identity. Van Gaal has not exactly been the advertisement of the swashbuckling football that United are known for, it does come here and there and to be fair you cannot get this with experimenting with youth players and injuries, having said that he has not endeared with the fans with his anal insistence on wayward tactics and baffling the fans with changing the position of players.
Whoever comes to replace Van Gaal whether the end of this season or the next, will have to make an impact immediately and this is why Mourinho seems the right man, but the litmus test is happening for United, United are listed on the stock market and have to make a decision of either sacrificing their philosophy of creative attacking football which they were known for years or go for instant success which Mourinho who is known for with his motto of win at any cost.
Mourinho is also not known to use academy players and grooming them, but he is familiar with working with a technical director. The other option? Going the Ajax way of using all former players for all the management positions it might just backfire, a freshness or different perspective might sometimes do the trick. A more subtle option would be to stick with Van Gaal for the remainder one year contract and replace him with Giggs when the time is right, this can work without the technical director role, as I am sure Sir Alex Ferguson would be a good sounding board for Giggs.
This would benefit further if Mike Phelan and Rene Meulensteen the assistant manager and coach who were the backbone of Sir Alex backroom staff would return to assist Giggs, the question is...would Giggs even want the job? He has not stated outright anyhwere that he wants this job and he did talk about the stress of it when he took over from Moyes for the last three matches. he is also still close to key players like Rooney, Carrick, Young and Valencia whom he played with, does he have the chutzpah to tell them off if things are not going well?
It is also time to sell Rooney and milk out the best transfer price for him, Rooney has been a passenger in the last three seasons, but he has this uncanny ability to score and make a difference to United just when the brickbats are about to come out for him. Nevertheless, it is time for Rooney to leave and the Chinese Super League teams might want to give out a great price for him,
Hiring Nicky Butt for the head of academy position at United is the best decision at United since Sir Alex Ferguson left, it brings stability to United with all the shifting in the senior positions. besides Ajax the other club who have followed the old boys philosophy is Barcelona and they have not been bad have they?
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