FA Cup Final Preview: Does Louis van Gaal Need a Win to Save His Job?

The crowd booed. Louis van Gaal took to the microphone to thank Manchester United fans for their "unconditional support."

It brought to mind the Groucho Marx line: "Next time I see you, remind me not to talk to you." Ryan Giggs looked on wistfully, a walking cheekbone, silent like Groucho's brother Harpo, perpetually wearing a look of quiet bemusement. Hold a mirror up to Giggs, and the average Manchester United supporter stares back. Both are miserable.

If Van Gaal wasn’t quite sure of the importance of Saturday’s FA Cup final, which recreates the classic 1990 meeting between United and Crystal Palace, Tuesday night’s rearranged final game of the Premier League season against Bournemouth underlined it in permanent marker.

A ripple of polite applause when the Dutchman gave his brief speech fooled no one. The natives are restless, even after signing off in FA Cup final week with a 3-1 victory. He is on more borrowed time in Manchester than a watch bought with Wonga money. Given some of the prices United have paid for players, it can only be presumed they agreed similar APR terms as part of the deals.

Some 102 competitive matches into an autocratic regime, it is still nigh on impossible to work out where Van Gaal is trying to take this team or how he’s going to get there. Jurgen Klopp has lost two finals in his first eight months in charge of Liverpool, but you don’t have to be Rinus Michels to appreciate the direction he is channeling his players.

United executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward is likely not a man bothered by the sound of only his hands clapping, which is good, as it was pretty much the case on Tuesday.

A lap of honour that saw the club’s players and staff listlessly stroll around the field at full time could have gone full Cersei Lannister in Games of Thrones, being made to take a naked walk of penance while locals bellowed "shame" in her direction. The club’s commercial team deserves nothing less, having painted the child mascots blue as part of a god-awful tie-in with an execrable superheroes film.

An ability to send a whole audience to sleep is some superpower.

"We can win the Golden Glove for David De Gea, and we can also win the best defensive organisation," Van Gaal said pre-match, per Samuel Luckhurst of the Manchester Evening News, bashfully neglecting to mention Manchester United had also made the shortlist for the Premier League's best pie and received a certificate of merit for parking facilities.

They don't call it the Theatre of Dreams for nothing.

Had Chris Smalling not put through his own goal at the death, which meant United had to share the best defence gong with Tottenham Hotspur, Van Gaal could have been brandishing a trophy that would presumably be shaped like a filing cabinet during his address to the club’s supporters.

After missing out on UEFA Champions League qualification to neighbours Manchester City, Van Gaal’s reasons to be cheerful are not quite up there with Ian Dury’s. As it stands, he probably still needs the FA Cup.

Given United supporters have sat through a significant proportion of games pondering whether they may ever end such was the inertness, it seems apt the league season meandered to its conclusion, like a pass too many, a couple of days after everyone else had bid Blighty farewell for the summer. Tuesday was an inconvenience; Saturday represents perhaps Van Gaal’s last opportunity to extend his tenure into a third season.

Van Gaal has risked ridicule by speaking of supporter expectations being too high in a period of transition. Even allowing for a little stasis in the post-Sir Alex Ferguson years, a projected £354 million outlay in reconfiguring the first-team squad leaves no tangible excuse for anything other than a record-equaling (with Arsenal) 12th FA Cup win on Saturday.

A first FA Cup final appearance since losing to Chelsea nine years ago could make any decision over his future—if indeed there is still one to be made—either easy or decidedly tricky for the club’s decision-makers. Should United lose, it’s hard to see how Van Gaal could survive the summer. Even a victory may not be enough.

Across the cobbles, Manchester City acted with decisiveness in disposing of Roberto Mancini after the FA Cup final in May 2013. As it happened, City lost to Wigan Athletic on the day, but the result was immaterial, as a decision had already been taken.

The club’s owners made a call on a style of football on the wrong side of cautious and the manager’s truculent-to-the-point-of-being-divisive character, which brings to mind a comment Lucy used to make in Peanuts: "Everyone is entitled to my opinion."

Sound familiar?

The man who delivered Manchester City a first title in 44 years was bundled into the boot of a car and never seen in Manchester again just 12 months later.

Van Gaal’s rap sheet in comparison is longer than the combined misdemeanors of the Wu-Tang Clan, and there are about 10 of them.

To lose out on a Champions League place by virtue of scoring 16 goals fewer than Manchester City is one thing. To have scored only a solitary goal more than Sunderland and five more than relegated Newcastle United is something different altogether. Half of the top flight scored more than Manchester United this season.

United's total of 49 goals was the lowest they have recorded in a Premier League campaign. Van Gaal’s first term as manager saw United trouble the scoresheet 62 times, which is only better than this season's record and 2004-05's tally of 58.

The home faithful celebrated just 27 league goals all term, the lowest of any Premier League side, with only 36 goals being scored in total at Old Trafford. York City, relegated from League 2, scored six more home goals than Manchester United.

This is still Manchester United—just not as we know it.

Twelve of United’s 19 league wins came by a one-goal margin. In terms of points accrued, this is United’s second-worst season in 24 Premier League campaigns.

When a David Moyes side starts to look expansive in comparison, it’s time to start asking serious questions.

Palace boss Alan Pardew, a man born to reduce another older more successful manager to an acronym without missing a beat, is of the opinion Saturday’s game could define "LVG’s" future. He was happy to lay it on with a spade as early as April.

"I remember Sir Alex's career hinged on that game and maybe LVG's career will hinge on this," Pardew said of the 1990 final, in which he played in midfield for Palace, per BBC Sport.

"I like [Van Gaal]," he continued. "He's had some terrible, terrible press, and I look forward to seeing him in the final."

Mark Robins' third-round winner in 1990 and, by extension, Lee Martin's winner in the replay of that year's final, after the first game ended in a 3-3 draw regarded as one of the greatest FA Cup finals of all time, are widely credited with keeping Ferguson in a job.

Whether apocryphal or otherwise, and Ferguson has always insisted it wasn’t the case and he’d had assurances over his position regardless of the result, folklore has it that had United lost the final 26 years ago, he’d have been replaced at Old Trafford.

He wasn’t sacked, and he went on to win 37 more trophies as Manchester United manager. The parallels with today’s situation are largely tenuous, though. Ferguson was less reconstructing a side in his own image as he was a whole football club. Young, bright and with an anger that burned bright, Ferguson offered a long-term solution.

Van Gaal is in the autumn of his career, and even if he wins on Saturday and takes the club a step forward next season, what’s the plan after that? Whichever way you cut it, while Manchester City (Pep Guardiola), Liverpool (Klopp), Tottenham Hotspur (Mauricio Pochettino) and Chelsea (Antonio Conte) all seem to be thinking long term in being guided by Europe’s best young tactical minds, United are using a pigeon in an iPhone generation.

Courtesy of more leaks than are housed at a Welshman’s allotment, Jose Mourinho has hardly helped his former mentor’s cause in so often being so open about his availability. It would barely be a surprise were he to turn up at Wembley Stadium in full strip, holding Wayne Rooney's hand as Manchester United mascot for the day. With his face painted blue.

The latest reports suggest Van Gaal and Mourinho could work together. At least the club has a good bomb-disposal team on speed dial.

Pardew expects to sign a new contract at Palace before the final, with the club having been suitably impressed with how the season has panned out despite winning just two league games after December, against Norwich City and Stoke City. They only secured their top-flight status in the penultimate game, but being 90 minutes away from winning their first major silverware has convinced the board of Pardew’s long-term suitability.

He has been handed a further fillip with the return to contention of Bakary Sako, ensuring he has a full complement to choose from other than Joe Ledley.

Palace’s record against United is dismal, though. They have beaten them just three times since 1980. In the previous six meetings between the two clubs, United have won five, with this season’s goalless draw at Selhurst Park the single anomaly.

It will likely provide the blueprint for Saturday’s game plan. With United notoriously bad at breaking down sides that sit deep, especially in the first half of games, expect Palace to be militant in keeping their shape while ensuring the distance between the back four and goalkeeper is kept to an absolute minimum.

Employing a high line would see Scott Dann and Damian Delaney hung out to dry against the pace of Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial, drifting in from the left flank. If Palace can frustrate United with solid banks of bodies across the pitch, a predilection for a ponderous tempo, too many touches and passes and a chronic lack of invention at times in the final third could afflict the favourites again.

Van Gaal has already predicted Palace’s approach, and he warned he cares little if it is a classic final just as long as United claim their first piece of meaningful silverware of the post-Ferguson years.

"You need two attacking sides for a fantastic match,” he said, per Paul Wilson of the Guardian. "Our starting point will be to perform well and try to win. I understand the fans like finals to be exciting and full of goals, but as long as we win, one-zero would be enough for me."

In smoking United out by frustrating them, Palace will look to counter-attack whenever possession is turned over. It is unlikely Palace will see much of the ball, but as Leicester City will attest, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Yohan Cabaye’s long diagonals could be key, with the pace of Wilfried Zaha and Yannick Bolasie as out-balls likely to target United’s weaknesses in the full-back areas. In a foot race, both of Palace’s running men would fancy themselves to outfox Antonio Valencia or Matteo Darmian on one flank and Marcos Rojo or Cameron Borthwick-Jackson on the other.

If Palace can get the supply line right, Zaha and Bolasie could have a proverbial field day on a gargantuan Wembley pitch, which if nothing else is guaranteed to stretch the contest. As the old cliche goes, the former must play the game rather than the occasion as he looks to get one over the club who made him feel "worthless", per Jonathan Liew of the Telegraph.

No Premier League side scored as many goals from set pieces this season as Palace, with Van Gaal having intimated Marouane Fellaini will win a recall after serving his suspension to help combat the threat.

"Fellaini is not suspended," Van Gaal said, per David McDonnell of the Mirror. "But you have to wait and see the lineup. If I say something about that, then Alan Pardew knows the lineup. They have scored 29 of 56 goals out of set plays. It's a lot more than us."

Palace's aerial prowess will be of particular concern for United given they recently allowed Wes Morgan to score from a Leicester set piece and both Michail Antonio and Winston Reid to net with free headers for West Ham United. Saturday could be the first time a pair of elbows share the man-of-the-match trophy.

United, who will wear an alternate white strip, just as they did in the first game in 1990, will almost certainly employ Rooney in midfield.

His pugnacious promptings from the centre of the field on Tuesday gleaned praise from even those who would rather have small pieces of wood pushed behind their fingernails than publicly accept he is even a footballer, let alone a decent one.

A disguised pass for Ashley Young’s goal matched his own lovely opening effort, as he finished smartly after a Marcus Rashford dummy so outrageous Bill Hicks blushed in heaven. If Palace sit deep and forgo high pressing in order to keep a more compact shape, a fit-looking Rooney could be pivotal in setting a tempo quicker than a leisurely afternoon stroll, so often becoming of hot days in May.

His somewhat pointed comments, per Jamie Jackson of the Guardian, about "still being a striker" for England, despite conceding "at the minute it is probably better for me to play deeper," would certainly give Three Lions manager Roy Hodgson something to think about should he impress again in a deep-lying role.

The final word, though, belongs to the man with most riding on Saturday's final. He insists the game is about much more than any one individual, and he’s right about that. But few would disagree with the view the 2016 FA Cup final is likely to be defining for both Manchester United and Van Gaal, who said, per Sky Sports:

"

I think the interests of the club are much more important, and the interest of the fans is more important, than those of the manager.

Of course, you have your own aims and that's one of the aims I have had always, so it's always exciting when you are so close, but close is not enough. You have to win it. A club like Manchester United needs silverware.

When you win silverware, it's important for the players, because a qualification is not a title. A title is the FA Cup or championship, because they can look and hold the trophy, so that's an exciting moment also.

We are playing in the most prestigious temple in England.

"

Indeed you are, Louis. Indeed you are. Wembley awaits.