BY TIM PARSONS
The manager of Manchester United, Louis Van Gaal, has been sacked and is to be replaced by former Chelsea boss, Jose Mourinho.
General discontent about the way he has run the club is said to be the reason for his dismissal. Gaal was on £6.4m a year.
Gaal’s dismissal comes after just two years of a three-year contract. He is currently discussing severance terms. The 64 year old was appointed over Man U in 2014 after impressively leading the Netherlands to the semi finals of the world cup in 2014. The old Trafford club which finished fouth in the premiere league of his first season, dropped a place to fifth with their lowest record of goal scorings for two decades of 49 goals. United’s F.A cup win over Crystal Palace on Saturday was effectively Van Gaal’s last game in charge, and the victory did nothing to save his post.
Mourinho’s appointment will be confirmed tomorrow, once the 53-year-old Portuguese meets with senior United officials. Mourinho himself was sacked last December, just 7 months after guiding Chelsea to the championship title. Football managers seem to get sacked and hired like a change of clothes or meals. All they have to do is flop in results, and they may be gone. For the old Trafford team, it hasn’t been the smoothest of journey’s . Manchester United scored 49 Premiere League goals this season, just one more than Blackburn’s 48 goals when they were relegated 4 years ago. The fact they went 11 games without a first half goal was also not an impressive fact for Gaal’s record with the team. However, one would have thought last Saturday’s success may have made up for the previous failings or under achievement of the club.
Much issue has been made about the poor or spiteful level of communication at the club’s hierachical structure,
In April 2014, United was criticised for their mishandling of the sacking of Moyes, when the coached learnt of his dismissal through the media.
The club conceded error on that occassion for leaking negative news before informing the manager, but a recurrence of that bad operation is here again 25 months later.
Van Gaal was informed of his impending dismissal by his wife at Wembley following the club’s FA Cup Final win , after reading the news on the BBC website on Saturday evening. The timing of the announcement was poor, and reflects badly on the club’s power structure. The club is said to have tried to keep the news secret until the right time, bit got their timing and planning disastrously wrong.
REPUTATION
Van Gaal arrived at Old Trafford with a high reputation, after his success in guiding Netherlands to the 2014 World Cup semi-finals.
His previous manegerial roles with Ajax, Barcelona and Bayern Munich, looked good on his resumee too.
Van Gaal was expected to achieve championship status for United after a stong start, having spent an inordinate amount on players, and used more subs than any other team in the premiership. Luck has also eluded him in the tranfer market department, with a near £60m record signing with Angel di Maria, lost and sold, and the extremely expensive Bastion Schweinsteiger and Morgan Schneiderlin, failing to reflect the multi millions spent in poaching them.
His campaign has been intermittent in terms of its success, with injuries or disciplinary action of his players, ruining any hopes of achievement for the team.In short, the team has struggled to show its potential, though it eventually did. It seems to have taking too long for Man United to arrive at a result worthy of any type of celebration, and by then the plan and talks to get Gaal out was already well underway with the replacement of Mourinho already too far in discussion for any retreat on Gaal’s fate to even be a possibility. Gaal, like other dismissed coaches will surely find somewhere else to manage if he still loves the job. He is so loaded that money is no issue to him; only his dignity and emotions may have been harshly hurt because of the insensitive process of his dismissal. The eye of media.com contacted Manchester United for an explanation of the manner of Gaal’s dismissal, but still await an official response.