The glaring truth for Louis Van Gaal is that Manchester United should have coasted through a Champions League group featuring PSV Eindhoven, CSKA Moscow and Wolfsburg. This is no anglocentric view fuelled by Premier League entitlement, but the simple corollary of what the manager’s £250mn splurge on 12 players in his three transfer windows should bring.
Van Gaal was given the bulging war chest to ensure crucial Champions League games such as Tuesday’s showdown at Wolfsburg could be negotiated. Instead, the German club won 3-2, and United were dumped into the Europa League. The quarter of a billion-pound spend should also have guaranteed that PSV were beaten at Old Trafford in the previous Group B game. Instead, a 0-0 draw was all Van Gaal’s team could manage.
The prime factor here is Van Gaal’s scattergun management style. It is a mix of the methodical and the eccentric. His United may be a plodding proposition but a fault line runs through the 64-year-old’s transfer dealings, man-management and team selection.
For Tuesday’s high-stakes game, Van Gaal handed Guillermo Varela, a 22-year-old Uruguayan, his senior debut. It was an odd decision. So, too, was the naming of Nick Powell as a replacement. The 21-year-old was last seen in United colours when Van Gaal’s side were given a 4-0 beating at MK Dons last August. Yet after 69 minutes they were 2-1 down at Wolfsburg and the Dutchman decided Juan Mata’s Champions League-winning experience (with Chelsea) should be sacrificed and that Powell, who has not played a second of senior football this season, could be United’s saviour!
But could have, should have is becoming a concerning trope of the man whose much-trumpeted philosophy is as puzzling as the Van Gaal buy-and-sell policy.
Angel Di Maria was the quick, world-class wide player Van Gaal yearned for when taking over in July 2014. He was acquired for a British record £59.7mn and lasted a season before the manager discarded him. A footballer, whose dribbling and game-breaking talent made him man of the match in Real Madrid’s Champions League triumph two months before joining United, seemed almost instantly to make Van Gaal suspicious of these same abilities. So, why buy him at all?
Di Mar?a heads a long list of Van Gaal rejects who might be swapped for those he has brought in (and retained), which poses the question of whether the manager has significantly improved the squad with the £250m investment.
For United, the gloomy truth is that under Van Gaal they appear a million miles from adding to their three European Cups.
They are the club with a £250mn investment by a manager who has taken them into the Europa League. It is just not good enough.