Is Pep Guardiola the man to lead United back to the glory days?
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So much garbage gets written in the papers about transfers and manager movements, but reading in the Telegraph and the Mail that Pep Guardiola supposedly wants to take over at United, not City, makes very good reading.
We saw another dull, pedestrian performance this weekend at Leicester, where 72% possession yielded two attempts on target, including Bastian’s goal. This match was yet another example of the philosophy all gone wrong.
United have no ideas in the final third, no thrust to the play, and it seems the players have been ordered never to shoot from more than 12 yards, never try to beat a man, and never move out of position. Leicester’s goal – a classic example of counter-attacking football – showed something completely lacking in United’s game.
LVG has had 18 months, and whilst anyone can argue we have improved, another valid argument would be that pretty much any manager in the Premier League working with this squad would have United where they are or higher, and playing better football.
I look at Darmian – he started his United career quite well, but I’m not sure what has happened since, and I question whether he’s any better than Rafael, who was let go for peanuts. It also looks as though Martial has lost his confidence after such a great start – very reminiscent of Di Maria’s time at the club. Memphis has been a huge disappointment so far; I wouldn’t give up on him just yet, but he needs to get his act together fast.
It would cost the mighty Reds £7 million to get rid of the Fuhrer at the end of this season, but that could be the best £7 million they have ever spent, especially if they can get Pep to come and lead us back to playing the United way, whilst competing for major trophies.
United need to be concerned. Liverpool under Klopp will be a force to be reckoned with, City have a great squad and can attract top players and a top manager with their billions, Chelsea are Chelsea, Arsenal are consistent, Spurs are looking better and better under Pochettino, and United are realistically going nowhere under LVG .
If what I read in the papers has any truth at all in it, Sir Alex should be using his charm and his brilliance to get Pep over the line to be our manager from next May. I don’t believe there would be a single United fan not happy to have LVG replaced in May with Pep – he led our recent poll by a clear margin with 40% of the vote, whilst just 6% of fans want Van Gaal to continue as far as 2017/18. If Pep proves impossible, then Pochettino should be the top target when the current season ends.
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Well written article. There’s this misconception among some fans that Pep’s style is very similar to lvg’s and United will play a similar dull brand of football. It’s a ridiculous misconception really, given the amount of goals teams under pep have scored.
The parallels with Rafael and di Maria are on point – I don’t think we should take individual names here. Van Gaal struggles to deploy his attackers. Now unless someone is willing to say RVP, Falcao, Rooney, di Maria, Martial, Hernandez and Memphis are BAD players, (which is a highly ridiculous claim) we have to come to the conclusion that Van Gaal is struggling to make the most out of attacking talent.