Grading Louis van Gaal on Manchester United's 2014/15 Premier League Season

In his first Manchester United season, Louis van Gaal has set quite a challenge for anyone seeking to grade him.

In the absolute, he has achieved the stated goal of a top-four finish. This, then, has to be considered some measure of success. However, in the more nuanced, relative terms of the world of football, it has been only a qualified success.

Things Van Gaal Has Done Well

Van Gaal has taken to the cultural aspects of the job like a duck to water. After a season of David Moyes' increasingly negative pronouncements, Van Gaal's experience and self-confidence radiated off him. In an entirely fluffy and hard-to-define sense, he felt like a “United” manager in a way Moyes could not even approach.

The most memorable images of Van Gaal himself this season are not directly football related. Fans will remember him interrupting Gary Neville on Sky Sports to celebrate the win over Liverpool. His end-of-season speech at the United awards will go down in folklore, as will his impassioned version of his own chant.

There has been the odd misstep off-the-pitch too. The dossier of statistics he brought to a press conference after Sam Allardyce's comments on United's long balls seemed to belie a defensiveness around his approach. That was understandable, given the approach was not quite working at the time.

There have been some fantastic results and performances on the pitch. The transformation of the side that followed in the wake of Robin van Persie's injury against Swansea City approached a peak as United brushed aside Tottenham Hotspur at Old Trafford.

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The first-half performance at Anfield was genuinely magnificent, capped off in the second by Juan Mata's wonder goal. That a demolition of Manchester City followed made it seem as if the entire season of stuttering false starts had been building toward something.

It is worth adding to the positives column the fact that, even when United were not playing well, they generally managed to do a pretty good job of getting results.

Whether we're talking about Daley Blind's last-minute equalisers against West Bromwich Albion and West Ham United or Ashley Young's last-minute winner against Newcastle United, there was evidence of some battling spirit in United's ranks again. There was evidence that they were playing for their manager.

Also worth mentioning here are the good performances he has wrangled from unexpected sources. Ashley Young, Marouane Fellaini and Chris Smalling in particular have all performed above expectation under Van Gaal.

Things Van Gaal Has Not Done Well

The most current of these is the end-of-season slump. Following the derby win, United managed just five points from the subsequent possible 18. In doing so, they blew any chance of avoiding an early-season play-off for a Champions League place. They also cost themselves a good deal of pride and momentum.

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Six more points would have overhauled Arsenal, 10 more would have caught City. Had he managed even the first of those, Van Gaal's grade would have been higher.

This slump has created a sandwich effect for Van Gaal's first season. The other thing he got badly wrong was the start. There were mitigating circumstances in terms of injuries.

Indeed, there were at the end of the season too, but the manager gets less of a pass for that because there were fewer and he knew his squad better by then.

Injuries aside, though, at the beginning of the season, the three-at-the-back system that had worked so well for Netherlands in the World Cup was a disaster at United. Almost the entire squad looked baffled as to what they were supposed to be doing.

Early season and late season both saw Van Gaal play square pegs in round holes. Occasionally, this was successful—Ashley Young at left wing-back being the prime example. However, more often than not, it has caused problems.

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Wayne Rooney in deep midfield was clearly not the answer to United's problems. He is not a particularly competent midfielder on this season's evidence. United started the second half of the recent home game with West Brom with Robin van Persie and Rooney in midfield behind Marouane Fellaini up front.

It was hardly a shock that United ended that game goalless.

There have been players who have performed way below their potential under Van Gaal's stewardship. Some of this may be out of the Dutchman's control, but it is hard to shake the sense that Angel Di Maria would have had a better season if he had been handled better. Playing him all over the pitch certainly did not seem to help his rhythm.

Grade

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There were plenty of positives and plenty of not-so-positives. Van Gaal's up-and-down season seems worthy of a B minus. This is closer to a B than a C because the highs of the season have been so memorable, and ultimately, fourth place was the prime target. There is plenty of work to do to get it closer to an A by this time next year.