There is in historiographic thinking a concept, an idea if you will, that advances in science, technology and society produce an improvement in the human condition. That, indeed, this “progress” is innately desirable. This idea is deeply ingrained in modern culture; that progress is the sum of these advances and, according to sociologist Robert Nisbet, that “no single idea has been more important” over recent millennia.
Yet, as a sociological construct the idea of progress is relatively new. It is not all that long since metaphilosophists disputed the notion of problem solving in philosophy at all. That, essentially, philosophical progress could never be made in absolute terms. Further, in an historical context, one need only study the economic regression of the dark ages, following the collapse of the Roman Empire, to dispute the notion that economic and social progress is inevitable at all. There was little for around one thousand years. Indeed, not until the rise of the scientific method was the notion of progress, as we understand it today, truly ingrained.
This is an idea that regular visitors to Old Trafford have discussed frequently this season – that, somehow, progress is essential for the betterment of Manchester United. It is a goal millions seek after more than two decades of success, followed by one of the most dramatic declines in the modern game.
There is something in this of course. That United’s status as one of the game’s financial, cultural and historic powerhouses means that the club’s now relatively lowly position – and a second season without silverware – is not the natural order of things. That progress is a right and the lack of it a disturbance in the fabric of the sport.
This new order is also one that fans must now accept. Louis van Gaal’s side is, as former Arsenal player Martin Keown put it on Monday night, “just not very good.”
Defeat to the Londoners in the FA Cup was devastating in its own right. It ended any realistic hope of silverware this season, leaving the Reds in a five-way battle for European football, with little guarantee of a positive outcome. The result was even more damaging to the psyche.
No longer is United among the domestic game’s elite, let alone at the top table of European football. There is no longer a guarantee of success, nor even entertainment. Teams with little history, let alone United’s riches, now compete on even terms. The club may well be on the precipice of entering its own dark age. There is no longer a promise of automatic gain.
Much of this assessment now falls at Van Gaal’s door, just as David Moyes took the blame for United’s fall from grace last season. The Scot’s was a failure both of his own making and that of the club’s too. His limited talent was ill-suited to an institution of United’s stature – the fans, players and probably even Moyes himself understood this quickly. United’s hierarchy should have worked it out in the hiring process.
The Dutchman is different though. His status as one of the game’s premier coaches came with a genuine promise: of progress and betterment, of a rapid turnaround, and an immediate return to the decades of success enjoyed under Sir Alex Ferguson. It is a mystique now smashed in the reality of Van Gaal’s regime.
In this there is a crushing realisation: that Van Gaal is no rapid solvent for a broken dream. The veteran coach has produced a functionally limited, stylistically barren side that is now less than the sum of its considerable parts. Quite a feat after more than £150 million was spent last summer. Moreover, while the obsessive switching of approach between cautious possession and desperate long balls baffles, the peripatetic shifting in tactics has now come to irritate.
On Monday night Van Gaal set up in what looked to be a reasonable formation, with all but Antonio Valencia in a seemingly natural position. At least for the few predisposed to believe that Marouane Fellaini has a place in a United side in any role, let alone an attacking one. Yet, by the close of the night the Reds were desperately launching long-balls at a front two comprising Chris Smalling together with the giant Belgian. Pretty it wasn’t.
If the initial set-up promised an attacking display the Dutchman ruined United’s shape and confidence at half-time, substituting the quietly effective Ander Herrera for the more defensively minded Michael Carrick. It was an understandable reaction to Daley Blind’s limited performance, but one that robbed United of all attacking verve. The shift in inertia to Arsenal was permanent.
Monday’s game is one proxy for a pattern that has become depressingly familiar to United’s legion fans. The manager’s consistent inconsistency and frustrating use, or misuse, of players has robbed supporters of confidence, if not yet all faith. So much so that gallows humour and a reluctant acceptance has now sunk in.
If motivation on the terraces is low then it has also filtered into the dressing room. By the end United’s was a performance without confidence or verve. Strange from a side that had boasted a record of just two defeats in 22 matches.
Yet, another way of looking at that series is that the Reds have now suffered three defeats in the past 12 fixtures – and a trio of those games came against Cambridge United and Preston North End. It is middling form that United will take into fixtures against Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea before April is out. Four fixtures, plus the May game against Arsenal, that could make Van Gaal’s season. Or otherwise.
In all of this there is, of course, a hint at the change once promised. Van Gaal’s record of vibrant attacking teams, built on youthful energy and a sharp tactical brain, seems some distance from the reality of eight months in Manchester. That aura is now broken.
Change will come one way or another of course. Personnel will come and go in the summer and United may well spend lavishly once again. The club can just about afford it. Yet, it still remains unclear to what end. While Van Gaal holds dear his philosophy, it seemingly comes without hint of a strategy. This is not a good place to be.
Van Gaal’s tendency to dismiss his more obvious failings has come to fore in recent weeks. It is a certain sense of stubbornness, at least in some minutiae if not the bigger picture, that hints at a manager who is reluctant to embrace change. Van Gaal is a man who is yet to accept that much of his experimentation this season has failed.
Or, as the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw once noted, “progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” It is a concept to ponder as United fans look towards the progress the club can make from here.
V good this
I especially like the picture – LvG in his “emperor’s new clothes mode”; his boy, van Stuivenberg (?) looking bewildered, and AriseSirRyan with his head in his hands, no doubt wondering how he got hornswoggled into being Louis’ bum-boy.
Get some Wittgenstein in there to explain the nature of philosophy during the remainder of the season and I’ll buy you a pint.
clueless manager
Van Gaal out???? So are you friends with any other ACTUAL AVAILABLE and willing managers who would like to manage the team? Are you really prepared to have another season of transitioning which will result in other season to acclimatise to a new manager and new policies? Do you know what you are truly asking? Are you really thinking with you brain? Another manager means another transition period which will be a 3rd season of nothing. Think!
Nailed it again
I’m not convinced that Van Gaal actually bought the players we did, it seemed like a Fantasy football wishlist, rather than a cohesive attempt to re-build a team, why else did we end up with so many strikers, it’s as if someone had asked Kevin Keegan for advice.
Trying to make all that talent work in one team was always going to be difficult, and with a new manager, it would be doubly difficult.
What is alarming is that players we have let go, are playing better away from the club, Nani in particular, my opinion is that LVG let some players go before knowing quite what the EPL was going to throw at him.
Not just Nani but also DannyTheLad, Chicharito, and KagawaBunga.
These four, plus TheWayneBoy and MC16, with the “conservative” additions of Blind and Herrera and back-ups in RvP, KidWilson. AV25, and AshleyBloodyYoung, would have formed a much more cohesive unit than the “make-shift” additions of Di Maria and the even-more-desperate throw-of-the-dice in the player who used to be “el Tigre” but is now a pale shadow of his former self.
Furthermore, it’s been a travesty along the back-line. Top teams build from the back, and this must be appallingly obvious as this season shambles along with NO consistent set of defenders.
Perhaps the most that can be said in LvG’s defense is that he has allowed players to play themselves out of the team. But what’s left to build on ?
Playing Fellaini, however ‘good’ he has been this season is tactically very lazy. It just encourages players to not try anything different when chasing a game. The best thing that could happen to United right now is, and sorry to say, Fellaini getting sidelined through injury/suspension. That way we are forced to find another way other than lumping it to the big man every time we trail. Otherwise he will always get picked.
I see no progress at UTD .I have supported them over 60 years .I have lost any confidence in the over paid under achieving non trying spoilt millionaires who turn up but do not play .They should be tried for fraud. Every man who has a job has a responsibility to work to the best of his ability,its expected .Utd demonstrate that they dont even have the pride to do a decent days work .A team who have allegedly talented players who only contribute diving.Please take the squads money and give it to those living on the streets where it might do some good
I am truly at a loss to explain where we currently find ourselves, in terms of playing style/recent performances, if not current league position. (Although this will change should the current level of performance not improve drastically over the next month or so)
We have a group of players that may not be the best squad in the world but they surely can play a lot better than they are doing. Then we have a manager who for years and years has succeeded at a pretty high level. The bit I don’t get then is why he continues to ask his reasonably good set of players to play in this style/manner. He may come on TV and tell us that we’re playing well, we beat ourselves, blah di blah, but surely he cannot actually believe it. He is an intelligent man (and ok a very stubborn one) but deep down he must watch us and it bore the life out if him like it does with everyone else. And if we’re not getting any better, and the results are starting to slide, then why not change it and try to play a more progressive brand of football instead? It can’t be any worse this the dross he’s serving up at the moment.
Progress? From what exactly? One disastrous season under a manager totally ill equipped for the job? After all its not that long ago since the heady days when United were kings of Europe which, believe it or not, was only seven years ago and only two since the club won the domestic championship for the second time in three seasons. Progress really isn’t quite the word, I don’t think.
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With this background you could say that last season and this has to be a temporary blip. Having ditched the man who was unsuited in so many ways for the job, the club hired someone with a real track record and a personality to go with it. Bearing in mind that most were in agreement that Van Gaal would have to overhaul the squad with numerous key players past their best and others not really up to the task, were we also entitled to expect, demand even, that the new manager would re-introduce success straightaway. If we did we were being naïve.
History shows us that Van Gaal is more likely than not to succeed at this job at some stage. It’s not guaranteed of course but it is more than likely. However, whilst we all rejoiced at the signing of world class players such as Di Maria and Falcao, the prodigious talent of Shaw and the promise that Herrera offered, none of us could have predicted the issues, albeit different, each one of these players would present to the club. Some may try and dispute it but none of these problems can be really laid at Van Gaal’s door. On top of that he has been beset by a string of injuries to most of the rest of his squad, particularly at the start of the season, which rather set the tone for an unsettled season.
Van Gaal should be given another season – one in which the team will have been further strengthened – in order to achieve the goals he has set himself. In the meantime we don’t want a manager who goes before the press and admits to everything that goes wrong being his fault. We had that with Moyes and what a complete disaster that was. Van Gaal has the right personality and sufficient arrogance to be in this job of all jobs. That is not to say he cannot fail. Like everyone else a little luck is also needed. So far Van Gaal hasn’t had his fair share of that. Yes there have been a few fortuitous results but overall its not a season where you can say everything has gone for him. Far from it really. However, Van Gaal is a winner, like Fergie was before him and give such people time to do their thing and the luck will come as well as the results.
United may not have a god given right to anything but it is a massive, massive institution. In the top two biggest football clubs in the world with a world-wide fans base of 12 million or more. In the top two sporting franchises globally with a history and tradition second to none. God given right or not, like Real and Barca, the expectation is that United is a club at the very top – one that wins major trophies on a regular basis. This may be a blip but rest assured it is only temporary.
You say that none of the problems with new players can be laid at van Gaal’s door. I strongly disagree.
Shaw is playing with fear. Why might that be ? Anything to do with a manager who made him training his own and injure himself in the summer, so that his debut was fatally delayed and he hasn’t settled and been given a run since ?
Herrera hardly plays. Even after being voted player of the month for February, he was taken off at half-time against Arsenal – and what a great vindication of the manager that match proved. We’re told the squad lacks balance – specifically the kind of steel that makes it possible to field more creative players like Herrera. Anyone could have told you last summer the squad needed at least 2 new mobile tough tacklers, but van Gaal came back from the World Cup and declared he wouldn’t be buying anyone until after the U.S. tour. Which resulted in that trolley dash as the window closed, where the manager spent vast sums before complaining about his squad’s lack of balance forcing him to play a certain (unsuccessful) way.
Di Maria has been told to cut out the dribbling and to look for the safe pass. Result: he’s looking like a worse waste of money than the Torres or Carroll cases we like to laugh at. Why was £60m spent on this player, to then tell him that his natural game – the one that made him MOTM in the Champions League Final – would have to change – to his unnatural game – whilst he was also trying to adapt to a new league, new set of team mates, new language and new culture ?
Not sure quite where you get the “Shaw playing with fear” and “Di Maria has been told to cut out the dribbling…” bits from. That’s the first time I’ve heard those.
No doubt some of the Van Gaal decisions have mystified. But he is decisive and that’s what you want from a manager. Hopefully the correct decisions substantially outweigh the bad ones as Sir Matt used to say.
I think what also has to be taken into account is that Van Gaal is also settling into the job in an environment he is not used to. Ok he’s had big jobs before but managing United and trying to put it back on the track it was on with Fergie is a new experience. So is the English PL with its pace and physicality. I am sure Van Gaal underestimated that aspect. What’s more he had very little time to re-organise the squad as he would have liked it between the time he took over and the close of the transfer window,. He had to assess players first hand before making decisions. I am not sure how many of the new signings were foisted on him by a club desperate to show it was still in the top echelon.
I am prepared to give him more time. It’s only natural that others aren’t.
Great article, very well articulated even if one or two of the words needed dictionary.com! Summarised the current position of the club very well.
It shocks me how quickly my expectations have changed after over two decades of steady success. The second season after Fergie leaves and I’m thinking finishing 4th would be a great season.
In one way it shows even more what a remarkable manager Ferguson was. It was always going to have a huge impact when he left… I just hadn’t appreciated how big. The fact is he won the title in his last season with an inferior squad of players to what van Gaal has available to him.
I am not calling for his head, but van Gaal is extremely fortunate that he was the man to replace Moyes and not Ferguson. Had expectations not been so rapidly and effectively lowered by the brief Moyes era, his job would most certainly be hanging by a thread at this stage.
I hope it is a question of a three year master plan and van Gaal is in control of a necessary process. However, I can’t fathom how he can have such a talented squad at his disposal and yet produce a team so incredibly lacklustre. Football is not fun at the moment.
He claims he hasn’t got the necessary players at his disposal to play the way he wants. If that’s the case he needs to have a long, hard look at himself. He is not getting the best of the phenomenal attacking talent at Old Trafford. Look at the football sides like Southampton and even West Ham can produce on their limited budget with barely a sprinkle of the stardust available at Old Trafford.
I don’t want van Gaal to get his P45, but I do want to get hold of him and give him a bloody good shake and tell him to get his act together
Not sure about the “phenomenal attacking talent” part. Rooney yes, RVP (injured and possibly past his best anyway) Falcao (hasn’t produced and may not be the player he once was), Wilson (great prospect but young and inexperienced at this stage to hold down a regular spot).
For me there are questions over Smalling, Jones(maybe), Evans, Rafa and Valencia. Blackett and McNair are great prospects but fall into the young and inexperienced category. Rojo is fine but needs an authoritative and experience CB partner. Shaw will be fine. Januzay likewise but seems to have lost his way a bit right now and hasn’t built on last season. Carrick seems to be getting injured a lot and possibly his best years are behind him too. Blind is fine but most probably not world class – more like adequate. Ditto Herrera – good player but certainly no Hazard, Willian or Silva! Di Maria – an excellent player who seems to have lost his way. Why did Real let him go one wonders? Young has revitalised his United career as a wing back but is he really what is needed wide left from an attacking viewpoint? And so on. It seems this squad has too many question-marks over it and we still need a few more top class players.
I’m getting worried that LVH might be outdated and out of touch with reality?
“The result was even more damaging to the psyche.” Spot on.
What so many United fans cannot grasp is the lack of progress on the pitch pales into insignificance with the obscene ( although successful ) commercialism which the Glazers are hell bent on exploiting. We now have them endorsing Social Poker so 000’s of young United fans will be encouraged to gamble in their youth. I am not puritanical, far from it but this is further evidence that all the scumbags are interested in is £££’s. Not without irony the Glazers late attempt at throwing money at the team after years of massive under investment is money down the drain. It could’nt happen to a bigger bunch b……….
I think if you went back to August and told people this team would be struggling to score goals and that we’d be fairly tight at the back, you’d been laughed at. But here we are. Boring and pedestrian.
Offensively, RVP is done, Falcao not delivered and Di Maria — my goodness, what a disappointment. I figured this man for 15 goals and near as many assists. Rooney, played out of position for most of the year and Shaw and Januzai regressing.
This all cannot be laid at the feet of injuries and fitting in to the league. I think LVG has not plot to lose. He’s in a reactionary mode, and frankly. his pressers sound word for word like Moyes, but unlike Moyes, he gets a pass. This whole we played well and beat ourselves routine? It’s March. That doesn’t work. This is a top four side. Hell, I thought we’d be winning 3-2 or losing 3-2 all year and at least have something to look at. But no, we’re pedestrian. Plain and simple
Reality is we are just dog shit to watch. So boring. I’ve actually started not looking forward to the weekends now given he I know I’m going to be pissed off for 90 minutes every time as we pass from side to side and watch every player take 8 touches on the ball. Utter shit.