On the eve of the biggest game of his professional career and probably, his last ever in a game in which his ideologies helped create. In his early years, he challenged the dinosaurs in the game with his use of computers and revolutionary training methods and has had a big impact on a lot of the biggest coaches in this game today.
His career is going out with a whimper as opposed to a bang and, it is largely down to turning in to the very type of person he challenged in his early career. His vision and philosophy have become stagnant and not evolved with the times. The fact it has got to this point though is extremely poor management from the board.
Van Gaal, for all that he has done for the sport, has been hung out to dry by the board of Manchester United. He’s been pushed, stories leaked in the hope it becomes too much and he retires. It’s a further example of the shambolic handling of the current board and how, really, they have not even a modicum of an idea of how to run a football club.
Since the great man has left us, the approach has had no clear directive, it’s been haphazard to put it mildly. The signings have had no clear plan, no way in which indicates the club has a vision. To sustain success, to run a football club, you need an identity. You need to have a man in charge that knows how to make the big decisions that’s best for the club he also knows, in signings and in hiring managers, what the club should be striving for.
It’s been one signing to the next with no clear plan. That has been far more toxic to this team than anything that Louis van Gaal has done for the past 18 months. He is a man that is completely away from what Manchester United was and he was bought in to try and reinvent Manchester United. That’s all well and good but, the signings haven’t come close to what an ideal Louis van Gaal team was. We’re now left with a squad, potentially, far more imbalanced than when Sir Alex left and this is the negligence of the board.
The stories coming out now are, once the club get Louis to resign, they will hand the keys over to the Class of 92 lot. Further establishing the sheer idiocy that runs through this board. It is negligent, it is beyond stupid and one in which fanciful thinking is outweighing any kind of logical rationale. Let’s explore this option.
Manchester United have seen Pep come from Barca B and take Barcelona to trebles and doubles. Success never experienced before and they clearly think that Ryan Giggs could be their Pep Guardiola. There is a serious problem with this. Manchester United does not possess Lionel Messi, Iniesta, Busquets, Pique or Xavi. These players made the step up for Guardiola easier but, did not make his job easy. He took them all to the next level.
Ryan Giggs would be coming in to the most difficult job in world football. It’s not even a debate. This team is around 4 transfer windows from having the team even close to capable of challenging for the title. Are we seriously suggesting, Ryan Giggs is the man to oversee such a significant rebuilding job when his managerial CV reads as follows:
4 Games, 2 Wins, 1 Draw, 1 Loss and that loss being at home… To a relegation threatened Sunderland, we then move on to his coaching career, he did little to nothing during the reign of David Moyes apart from moan about playing time to his friends and distance himself from David in order to stay away from that image. Moyes, sacked. Then is assistant to Louis van Gaal and ever since his appointment has once again, defied his boss with his touchline antics, distanced himself from Louis and also, used his friends in the media as a mouthpiece to pile pressure on Louis.
Make no mistake about it, Ryan Giggs since Sir Alex’s retirement has done absolutely nothing in the best interest of the club, he’s living off his Class of 92 status and expects to walk in to the managerial job as if he’s owed it by Manchester United for some reason. Laurent Blanc, Hughes, Keane, Bruce just a few names of ex Manchester United players that are actually more qualified for the job than Ryan.
He’s even turned down jobs, lucrative ones at that, to stay at Manchester United knowing full well, Louis was close to the door and he’s done not a whole lot to help him. He knows that, if he goes elsewhere and fails, he would not get the opportunity at the job. He even got offered the Swans job a team that is very stable, has great players and play a nice style of football. Turned it down.
The sudden explosion of the Class of 92 in to the management world who have done little to nothing to deserve the positions they hold is extremely concerning to me. Gary Neville, a man who has never managed a game in his life is the manager of Valencia for crying out loud. How absolutely absurd is that. Just think, for a second. How ludicrous this is getting.
I’ll put a further spin on this for you. Some of you say (the mad ones) that Giggs deserves ‘a go’ as if it’s riding a bloody bike. Ok, Ryan Giggs, club legend deserves a go… Say Philip Lahm fancies a go at the Bayern job but, say, Ancelotti is available. If they turned round and went, thanks Ancelotti, I know you’re a proven coach but, Lahm has played here his entire career, he deserves a go at it.
No, they wouldn’t do it. Why? I’ll tell you. It is quite frankly, lunacy in the highest degree, it makes no sense what so ever. There is no plus side to letting Giggs ‘have a go’. Yes, he may turn the club in to some sort of Alex Ferguson super mould and he’ll take the club on for the next 30 years but, let’s be realistic here. How likely is that? I’ll tell you how likely… Not bloody very. I’ll actually put it in statistics terms and based on my calculations, you’re actually more likely to win the lottery, get struck by lightening on the way home from picking up your winnings, getting another lottery ticket and winning it again. Than it is that Giggs will be a success.
The club take this leap to appointing Giggs, they better be prepared for being put back another 5 years at least. Can the club afford that? Can the investors? If they don’t make the Champions League this year, the club lose out on a massive contract from Adidas. Can they really afford to do that? If the honest answer is yes, then, by all means. Go for it but, how long does Giggs get? How long before the results turn sour do the fans turn on one of the greatest club players ever? Why should Giggs get more time.
Say it doesn’t work after 2 years, then what? Go back for Mourinho then, try for Pep after he’s been City? No, the club have had two guilt edge chances to sign 3 of the top coaches in the world and both times it seems, they’ll be choosing the candidate that is frighteningly under qualified for the job and it’s based on fairy tales not rational thinking.
We’re in a very dangerous position and now is not the time to be playing around with the club. It’s certainly not the time to be rewarding a man who for 2 and a half years has been involved in two massive managerial failures and been working behind their back in order to undermine them for his own personal gain. Giggs is a legend but, he is not the manager of Manchester United and, he certainly shouldn’t be until he has proven his worth elsewhere.
If Manchester United want evidence of a super club that had no clear plan and how quickly the floor fell through, they can look as far as AC Milan but, just a short look across the motorway at Liverpool shows, no big club is immune from falling in to mediocrity and it happens a damn site quicker than you can possibly imagine.
The Devils In Detail 