Sunday’s 1-0 defeat to Southampton means both Louis van Gaal and David Moyes accrued 37 points after their first 21 Premier League games as Manchester United manager.
But has the Dutchman really been as bad as the man who didn’t manage a full season before he was sacked?
Here is analysis of who may be faring better as the Old Trafford No1 at this same stage of the season.
1) Statistical analysis
The Dutchman has won a match less – 10 to Moyes’s 11 – and seen his side score 34 times, again one poorer than his predecessor’s team had scored at this stage in what was to prove his only season. Van Gaal’s team has made a total of 11,465 passes to Moyes’s 10,306, completing 85.2% against the 83.1% at this stage last season.
Perhaps the most counter-intuitive number is that Van Gaal, with his background in the Dutch Total Football school, has overseen a side who have played more long balls (12.9% against the 11.3%) than his predecessor. Yet while Moyes’ United made more passes in the final third – 3,183 versus 3,078 – Van Gaal’s men have been slightly more accurate in their passing. This year’s United have conceded three less goals in 21 games, won more tackles (408 v 354) but have made more fouls (245 v 228) and the three red cards received is two more than under Moyes.
Rating Van Gaal 6/10 Moyes 6/10
2) Transfer policy
Van Gaal ended his summer window having recruited six first-team additions in Radamel Falcao, Luke Shaw, Ángel di María, Marcos Rojo, Daley Blind and Ander Herrera at a cost of over £150m. The issue here is how many of these – if any – have made a consistent contribution. Injuries, patchy form and a struggle to adapt to the Premier League have affected all at some point. The big disappointment is Falcao: his dropping from Sunday’s match-day 18 to face Southampton was hardly a surprise.
A factor in Moyes’s dismal tenure was how he fared in the summer 2013 transfer window. The botched attempts to land Cesc Fàbregas, Thiago Alcântara, Leighton Banes and Herrera meant he ended up signing only one established player in Marouane Fellaini. The Belgian’s inflated £27.5m fee and struggle to adjust became the on-field symbol of Moyes’s own difficulties. He was hardly helped by the new executive vice-chairman, Ed Woodward, being a novice in player-acquisition and so by 1 September Moyes had just Fellaini, who United fans were instinctively doubtful of, and Guillermo Varela, a young and unknown Uruguayan right-back who was shown the door marked “loan” by Van Gaal this year.
Rating Van Gaal 6/10 Moyes 4/10
3) Tactics
3-5-2, 5-3-2, 4-4-2, 4-4-1-1, 3-1-4-2, and 3-3-2-2: Van Gaal has proved flexible in the formation department yet is all this shape-shifting confusing the players? It has not helped to provide the consistent performances the manager wants, and of more concern is the lack of truly glittering displays in his tenure so far.
Where is the flair and sparkle and breathtaking football United fans have supposedly been raised on? The Van Gaal vintage are a functional outfit who can grind out results. The latter part of this formula is admirable but the ordinariness means a lack of fluidity of play that can turn stubborn teams over. In the defeat to Southampton this deficit proved costly with the team registering a grand total of zero shots on target.
To label Moyes as a one-dimensional tactician may be lazy yet who can forget the record 82 crosses his United made against Fulham last February as the then bottom Premier League club left Old Trafford with a 2-2 draw?
The other entries on this charge sheet include a sluggish mode of football, a seeming abdication of on-field responsibility from players that surely derived from Moyes’s lead, and a general lack of spark and creation.
Rating Van Gaal 6/10 Moyes 4/10
4) Coping with injuries
The question for Van Gaal is whether bad fortune or his own culpability has caused the 56 separate injuries suffered by his squad, the last of these coming when Robin van Persie limped away on Sunday with an ankle problem. The 63-year-old has talked of an easing off from the level he would prefer to train players and has acknowledged trying to get to the bottom of precisely why the treatment room has been so crowded this season. Whatever the reason the injuries have not helped though do offer mitigation regarding why United are not higher in the table.
After 21 league games of Moyes’s season there had been 44 separate injuries, though United were also involved in the Champions League and remained in the Capital One Cup. Of his key players Wayne Rooney suffered some niggling problems though rarely missed a chunk of games but Robin van Persie was absent for a crucial month from early December 2013 due to an upper leg problem. All managers have to deal with injury so unless they reach the unprecedented number Van Gaal has faced Moyes cannot point to this as a factor.
Rating Van Gaal 5/10 Moyes 4/10
5) Behind the scenes
The Dutchman was clear from the start he was introducing a new philosophy (a favourite buzzword) of which a central tenet has been to encourage players to use their brains rather than rely on instinct. This declaration has bought him time – along with the grace offered by having to follow Moyes’s failure – but the jury remains out as six months into his tenure United are still not a side who scare the opposition, home or away.
One of Van Gaal’s opening acts was to install cameras at the training pitches and to rip up the first-team practice surface next to the Jimmy Murphy Centre so that Desso, the synthetic-grass hybrid material in place at Old Trafford, can be laid. He also asked that more trees be planted so that the facility is more sheltered by the wind.
This pro-activeness has been evident at the stadium, too, where the players’ lounge has been relocated, now being partly used as a warm-up area and media interview room.
The former Everton manager, on the other hand, did not make as many significant infrastructure changes at either Carrington or Old Trafford but did drive an overhaul of the club’s scouting system and created a “bunker” similar to the one from which he plotted player recruitment at Everton and was a bespoke facility that featured whiteboards, computers, with high-definition screens, iPads and other state-of-the-art digital technology.
Rating Van Gaal 7/10 Moyes 5/10
6) Atmosphere around club
The shiny CV boasting championships at all of his previous four clubs, won in three different countries, and the stellar performance of his Holland team in Brazil last summer give Van Gaal a fair reserve of collateral to draw on when results are poor. There is no surprise that every time a player opens his mouth he talks of being happy with Van Gaal’s methods – what else would he say? – but the sense is there is a belief the Dutchman is a winner who can elevate United again. The fans are also, largely, behind him though there were a few grumbles after Sunday’s loss to Southampton and the decision to drop Falcao.
From day one Moyes faced a battle to convince that his face fitted and that he had the football brain, charisma and cojones to be Manchester United manager. The comments in March that Liverpool were favourites ahead of their visit to Old Trafford and that Manchester City were the standard to aspire to illustrated why players, and supporters, harboured doubts. Moyes seemed to shrink in the job and has since admitted he made mistakes. Perhaps the biggest was not to adapt a more cussed attitude instead of the meek persona he presented.
Rating Van Gaal 8/10 Moyes 3/10
Totals
Louis van Gaal 38/60; David Moyes 26/60