Louis Van Gaal and his lads from Lancashire have had nothing but bad luck. A barrage of injuries to everyone from captain Wayne Rooney, best player David De Gea, and pretty much every United defender, has left Van Gaal’s side in Europe’s second-tier cup and without hope of a top four finish at home. Van Gaal will not have a job by June and Jose Mourinho is the man set to replace him.
But is United making the right choice?
Jose Mourinho is a disciple of Louis Van Gaal, he learned from him at Barcelona. Like mentor, like tutor: both Mourinho and Van Gaal are defensive, possession conscious coaches.
Seeming further and further away are the days of go-for-broke, wing-based attacking football under Sir Alex Ferguson, and not many elite coaches are left like that.
Except, maybe, Diego Simeone. Simeone’s football is all about attack, attack, attack; a never say die attitude. The man, affectionately known as “El Cholo,” has cojones when he plays. He has effectively guided Antoine Griezmann, who is supposed to be used as a creative, playmaking dynamo, and turned him into one of the top ten snipers in European football right now. No easy feat.
Griezmann is everything Eden Hazard was supposed to be. Eden Hazard: the ex-Mourinho player. Do United need players like Hazard who play fancy passes that ultimately turn into wasted chances? Or do they need a swashbuckler, like Griezmann?
Manchester United can’t win trophies on pointless possessions they know little to do with. They tried that under Van Gaal and it didn’t work. They need attack and they need balls - like, Simeone has. They need conviction that anything can happen in a match, like Ferguson had.
Diego Simeone is a man who took an Atletico Madrid side with a much smaller payroll to the brink of a Champions League Final upset over cross-town rivals Real Madrid. It takes a man with fresh ideas and a never say die attitude to do that. Mourinho’s pragmatic style is getting old, like Van Gaal’s did. So I say emphatically: “Earth to United, get Simeone, the new Ferguson. Not the old and boring Mourinho.”
