(Louis, as he appears in my dreams, waving goodbye to Manchester United. It is long past the time when this dream should have come true)
West Ham are now favourites to progress to the semi-finals of the FA Cup having drawn with Manchester United at Old Trafford 1-1.
Liverpool are favourites to progress to the last eight of the Europa League having beaten United at Anfield 2-0.
The Red Devils currently lie sixth in the Premier League and look like missing out on a place in next season’s Champion’s League, unless Arsenal collapse, (which is a possibility), and/or City continue their current winless run.
This, to a deluded Dutchman, is progress. According to him his three year plan is well on track. Well, unless his three year plan was to waste millions of pounds on average players, finish in a lower league position each year and win absolutely nothing, then he is not on track. In fact, he is so far off track that he is in serious danger of requiring a psychiatrist to explain his problems to him.
After watching the abject performance against Liverpool I looked forward to the West Ham game on the basis that ‘it couldn’t get any worse’.
Fortunately, it didn’t and they played reasonably well. What was far more disappointing than the teams inability to beat West Ham was van Gaal’s usual excuses which are trotted out whenever United don’t win. In this case it was because United didn’t have the same recovery time as West Ham between games.
This was based on the fact that West Ham’s previous game had been a week ago, whereas United had played Liverpool on Thursday. So United’s players only had two full days to recover from doing very little for ninety minutes at Anfield.
I have never played football at this level, or anywhere near it come to that, but I have played for amateur teams and pub teams. I have turned out for a team on Sunday morning then for another on Sunday afternoon. I never remember anybody who did the same complaining of tiredness or fatigue. We also worked a fair bit harder than the professionals of today owing to the fact that we weren’t playing on Persian carpets. In Summer we played on soft mud and in Winter we played on frozen mud.
In fairness, I never hear the players complaining now, it is always the managers. They always seem to be able to find an excuse for not winning yet, when they do win, it is nearly always because of how brilliant THEY are.
So, back to United. By the end of next week they will probably be out of the two cup competitions and need to win every league game to have any chance of the top four.
If this is progress I would hate to see failure.
One question that myself and probably every Manchester United fan would appreciate an answer to is, ‘Why is the Dutch clown still in charge?’ The United board, as usual, are treating the supporters like mushrooms and stupid mushrooms at that.
We are not idiots and would prefer to be treated like sensible human beings. Just explain why, when everybody wants van Gaal out, he is still there. Stop ignoring the fans!
Ed Woodward, (from Chelmsford), sits in his office in London, a million miles away from Old Trafford and the real world. He has no connection whatsoever with the club and should be sent packing along with van Gaal.
Whoever replaces him should know the history of the club, should not be an arrogant snob who thinks he is smarter than everybody else and should be able to empathise with the supporters not look down his nose at them.
Sounds like a job for Jose Mourinho to me!
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 