WHY SAY ANYTHING?

Does Louis van Gaal deserve any sympathy for his plight at Manchester United or for his treatment in the press?

Maybe, maybe not. Some of the media can be harsh, some can be petty and some can be pathetic.

I have watched interviews on Sky TV, on MUTV and on BT Sport and probably others too numerous to mention over the years. The questions never improve, they never change and they are as stupid now as they were fifty years ago. It would seem that the only qualification needed for a job as a sports interviewer on TV is an almost photographic memory for stupid questions.

Asking a manager what he needs to do to win the next game is a stupid question. His team needs to score more than the opponents, obviously. Asking a manager if injuries have forced him to make changes is a stupid question. He cannot play injured players so he will make changes, obviously.

Pathetic questions are no excuse however, for the way some managers behave when faced by the cameras or just by a collection of ne’er-do-wells from Fleet street.

Where it becomes more a question of morality is when families are brought into the equation. If it is the press who introduce them to a story they are usually highly criticised and accused of invading privacy and, rightly, pilloried for it.

When it is a high profile manager, such as Louis van Gaal, the initial reaction is to feel sorry for him and forgive him for wanting to be protective towards them. He has a wife, daughters and grandchildren and he wants to maintain their privacy and keep them out of any spotlights that may be being switched on when he is around.

This is very laudable until you remember that HE has already broken one promise to his wife which was that he would retire after his contract with the Dutch national team was concluded.

He had promised that their twilight years would be spent at their villa on the Algarve.

Had he kept this promise then not only would he be better off, but so would his wife. It is not stretching the realms of possibility to say that Manchester United may have been better off as well. His daughters and grandchildren would not be receiving the unwelcome attention that he says they are receiving now, solely because of his inability to listen to what anybody else wants.

This affliction is evident at Old Trafford. One only has to listen to the players. They may not say anything overtly hostile about van Gaal, but they do leak little things. Such as the training being boring, the meetings about the tactics which, having watched the last few games, don’t appear to have achieved anything.

So it would appear that van Gaal, who we know doesn’t listen to what his players have to say, probably because he thinks he knows better, also doesn’t appear to listen to what his own family have to say.

The bottom line with all this is simple. Louis van Gaal wanted the United job. Louis van Gaal took the United job. I doubt his wife was asked for her opinion, he isn’t that type of person. She was probably promised the earth when he retires, AGAIN! His family probably weren’t consulted, they would have been told what was going to happen. Louis isn’t the sort of man to ask permission from families or wives, he is the boss there as well.

So if HIS decisions rebound and end up affecting his family’s harmony and privacy then that is HIS OWN FAULT. There is no point having a go at the press, they will write what sells newspapers, not necessarily the truth. They will report when a manager at a big club is failing. They will report any rumour of replacements or sackings, they will criticise managers when they are not winning. It’s nothing personal, they are “just doing their job” as they always say
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If van Gaal does not like his family reading bad publicity about him in the press then he should have thought of that before he took the job but, yet again, his arrogance probably didn’t allow for any bad press, because it didn’t allow for failure.

What he can’t now do is start complaining about the bad publicity that his wife and family are reading about him when HE has been the chief instigator of it. Grow up Louis and start behaving like an adult.