Premier League Hangover: Just How Does Louis van Gaal Get United Back on Track?

In 1933, the author J.B. Priestley reached the North's industrial heartland as part of his research for a forthcoming state-of-a-nation tome, English Journey. He noted: "What Manchester thinks today, the rest of England thinks tomorrow."

It doesn't take the prescience of a dyed-in-the-wool Mancunian to appreciate Saturday's defeat at Bournemouth could have serious repercussions for Louis van Gaal.

Priestley was writing during the Great Depression. Those Manchester United supporters of a melancholic persuasion will plead it will only be with the defenestration of the Dutchman that their own similar malaise can be alleviated.

Reeling off statistics can make even the brightest boy seem dull, but given Van Gaal’s own predilection to use numbers to swell a self-belief on the hefty side of gargantuan, it would be remiss not to set the scene.

Manchester United have won three of their last 12 matches. In that period, they have scored 11 goals. They average just 3.7 attempts on target per game for the season.

Saturday’s 2-1 loss to Bournemouth saw Van Gaal’s win percentage (51.43) dip below David Moyes' (52.94). That’s the same David Moyes who on the day Mesut Ozil made it 13 assists from 15 Premier League matches, as Arsenal beat Aston Villa 2-0 to go top of the league on Sunday, claimed on Sky Sports (h/t the Independent) that "the jury’s still out on him a bit."

Let’s just hope it’s not the same jury that presides over his next managerial post.

It’s not all bad news, though, as United can boast the highest number of passes backward in the whole of the league.

For a while, Van Gaal’s processes and philosophies allowed for patients to catch up on much-needed sleep during matchdays, but with a winless run now stretching to five games and a style of play established that is as entertaining as a television missing its plug, many are not so much questioning his methods as demanding a rebate.

In a week in which eyes were rolled at Van Gaal’s assertion this is essentially as good as it gets, in an era when not just the big boys can spend serious money—sounding a little like a Tory registering disgust at spotting a satellite dish on a council estate—he did at least offer one salient soundbite.

"The bottom clubs can beat the top teams," he opined ruefully, per Sky Sports. 

"There is no other league where that happens as often as the Premier League."

A vigorous defence of his Old Trafford reign saw Van Gaal bullishly defend his record, as he intimated the club’s supporters are living in the past if they expect similar dominance to that which they enjoyed under Sir Alex Ferguson.

"They say a club like United has to win," he said, per the Manchester Evening News. "That's the past." 

"You cannot analyse the club now. [You cannot] compare it with 10 years ago, because there has been an evolution in football."

It would be charitable not to mention United’s £350 million gross (£237 million net) spent in the five transfer windows since Sir Alex Ferguson retired. Or that Van Gaal has spent more than £250 million on new players. Or the fact Bournemouth’s annual turnover in 2013-14 was £10.1 million to United’s £433 million.

Better to move on and stick to Saturday’s game.

Perhaps the most shocking thing about United’s defeat at Bournemouth was the fact it wasn’t actually that shocking. Those Bournemouth supporters in attendance will justifiably feel they witnessed one of the greatest chapters in the club’s history being written, but scratch beneath the surface romanticism and this felt more David bloodying the nose of a kid in the year above than David versus Goliath.

Militant Manchester United supporters will point to a back four that isn’t allowed out at night without a chaperone as a mitigating circumstance. Even the most evenhanded of judges would throw out such an appeal on the grounds it’s hardly a new thing that United need an extra centre-half and that Chris Smalling and Phil Jones are as intimate with the club’s medical staff as they are their respective partners.

A blustery south coast wind carried with it a message from the vaults of the halcyon years, as Roy Keane menacingly whispered as only he can: "Fail to prepare, prepare to fail."

In fairness to United’s triumvirate of youthful endeavour, Cameron Borthwick-Jackson, Guillermo Varela and Paddy McNair, elder statesman Daley Blind was just as turgid. In comparison, he made Arnold Schwarzenegger look passable as a Kindergarten Cop.

A fine distributer from the back Blind may be, but unfortunately his ball-watching eclipses his ball-playing.

United’s injury list may be weightier than most, but when you consider Bournemouth were missing their captain (Tommy Elphick), top goalscorer (Callum Wilson), record signing (Tyrone Mings), second-most expensive signing (Max Gradel) and a first-choice centre-half (Sylvain Distin) among others, it’s unlikely too many candles will be lit in solidarity.

For 45 minutes, United were slack at the back but otherwise fine. The response elicited from falling behind to an early Junior Stanislas goal direct from a wind-assisted corner was a little guileless at times, as diagonals were repeatedly hit from deep to Marouane Fellaini, yet without being scintillating, there was an element of control to United’s play.

Memphis Depay was enjoying one of his more productive afternoons when isolated against Adam Smith, and it was the winger who proved the architect of United’s leveller when he got in after Michael Carrick dropped a lofted chip from deep that could have been delivered from the arm of Joe Montana.

Depay’s touch was befitting of the pass as it brought the ball down instantly, and while Artur Boruc was equal to his prod for goal, the Pole was powerless to prevent Fellaini from dinking in the rebound. How Fellaini lifted himself from the floor to get his shot away reminded of a foal making first tentative steps, but it was deserving of praise for admirable ingenuity.

The rest of the half was entertaining fare as blows were traded tit-for-tat. If Paul Scholes had a gun, though, Anthony Martial would have been ducking for cover as profligacy flared again as he dragged meekly wide when through on goal.

After half-time, it was a horror show to the extent Bela Lugosi was seen warming up in a United tracksuit from the moment Josh King’s incessant industry was rewarded with the goal it richly deserved. After twice conceding from set pieces against Wolfsburg, it proved a repeat show, as Blind lost King at a corner to allow a player rejected by United at the start of his career to neatly finish a finely tuned training-ground routine.

Thereafter, where Bournemouth pressed, United pondered. Where Bournemouth countered, United cantered. Everything that was good about Bournemouth, from playing in tight areas with wit and no little courage to the buccaneering forays of their emboldened full-backs, via the hard-running hold-up play of first King and then Glenn Murray, was absent from United’s play.

Bournemouth look well-managed—United well-manacled.

"

There's no more preoccupied person than the Manchester United player in attack. Too much to remember, so many constraints, no freedom. #Mufc

— John Brewin (@JohnBrewinESPN) December 12, 2015"

While everything about Bournemouth embodies the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, to watch Manchester United is to painfully pick apart Aristotle’s Axiom.

"To be honest, I don’t think they have that aura any more," was Bournemouth defender Simon Francis' withered assessment, per the Telegraph.

"Probably because of the way they’re playing. We looked at their team, especially their back four, and knew we could exploit that."

On the respective benches, Eddie Howe’s cherubic grin was replaced with steely-eyed focus, while Van Gaal looked anxiously behind him at his substitutes as if repeated searches might miraculously conjure up a goalscorer hiding under a seat. Someone such as Javier Hernandez (15 goals in his last 12 games for Bayer Leverkusen) perhaps or James Wilson (two in two starts on-loan at Brighton and Hove Albion).

Were it not for substitute Murray twice blazing over when he looked odds-on to repeat his Stamford Bridge heroics from a week earlier, Howe could have delivered the champagne to the home side’s dressing room himself while the game was still in play.

With United chasing, they managed just one shot on target in the entirety of the second half. That’s the same number they managed in the second period of their previous two Premier League games, against Leicester City and West Ham United.

IAN KINGTON/Getty Images

Van Gaal’s substitutions have always been a little abstract. On Saturday, they were pushing for a Turner Prize as Jones was introduced in the 90th minute with United chasing an equaliser and Ashley Young was overlooked altogether.

Indeed, the workings of the most idiosyncratic of managerial minds has peaked, or reached its nadir depending on how you think about, in the past two matches via the strange case of Nick Powell.

No one looks more surprised than the player himself. A fortnight ago, he was happy to spend his days working through a multipack of Wotsits while fending of inquisitive looks from club officials who keep wondering why the work-experience kid in the social media department keeps turning up in full kit, boots and shin pads.

Here was a player who not so long ago, according to a report in the Daily Mirror, was ready to call time on his career at just 21 after a succession of loan stints away from Old Trafford had proved fruitless. 

He sounds like the ideal candidate to replace Juan Mata, a playmaker who has been involved in more Manchester United goals than any other player since arriving from Chelsea in January 2014, when you are chasing a goal with Champions League aspirations hanging by a thread in Wolfsburg.

Powell couldn't conjure the goal United needed to avoid Thursdays becoming the type of date night when both parties hope for a no-show. Nor could he at Bournemouth when inexplicably thrown up front for the final 15 minutes. Even when taking off Fellaini, Van Gaal managed to frustrate United supporters. That’s quite the feat.

It was of course back in 1984 when United last lost to Bournemouth. There’s a George Orwell joke to be made somewhere about dystopian nightmares and the persecution of individualism and independent thinking in an authoritarian state, but I wouldn’t want to push any supporters into taking the Road to Wigan Pier in order to throw themselves off it.

After all, lest we forget that in the most remarkable of seasons, United’s players will report for training on Monday morning in the knowledge they are only four points shy of the Premier League summit.

All pain as a football supporter, it seems, is relative.

Jury Is Hung on This Lad...

Mixed Reaction to Klopp's Kop Show After 2-2 Draw with West Brom at Anfield

"

I like Klopp but he's got psychology wrong there. Imagine LVG doing that at OT in similar circumstances. Guffaws would blow roof off Kop

— Tony Evans (@TonyEvans92a) December 13, 2015"

Winning Ugly Wins Titles...

What a Difference a Week Makes... 

Romelu Lukaku Eyeing Jamie Vardy's Record?

Alan Pardew Keeps His Feet on the Ground as Crystal Palace Close on Top 4

And Finally, as Watford Move up to 7th, the Media Can't Stop Talking About Quique Sanchez Flores' Side...

Apologies. We should be able to find a tweet for next week.

All statistics provided by WhoScored.com unless stated otherwise.