Where Does Louis van Gaal Sit on the List of Manchester United's Worst Managers?

Louis van Gaal is still the manager of Manchester United, in spite of ever-spiralling discontent in the crowd and what have been for the most part drab, ineffective performances over the past few months.

One of the key touchstones for discussions of his level of performance is whether or not the team has been worse than under David Moyes. That comparison, which hardly seemed relevant even as last season ended as a qualified success, has gained increasing pertinence as the football on show has got worse and worse.

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So is Van Gaal worse than Moyes? And further than that, where does Van Gaal rank on the list of least effective managers who have been in charge of United? We are starting the cut-off at the point at which Sir Matt Busby retired in order to limit its parameters to living memory.

Let's take a look at the list and decide where Van Gaal currently sits. Since Sir Matt retired—the second time around in 1971—United have been permanently managed by:

• Frank O'Farrell
• Tommy Docherty
• Dave Sexton
• Ron Atkinson
• Sir Alex Ferguson
• David Moyes
• Louis van Gaal

Obviously Sir Alex—being a bona fide contender for "best football manager of all time"—is instantly crossed off the "worst managers" list. Ditto Docherty—the Doc's sacking had little to do with football, and he had won an FA Cup with a team playing the most attractive football they had done since Sir Matt retired.

He may have got United relegated, but he got them up in such style that many older Reds have plenty of nostalgia for the campaign United spent out of the top flight.

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Ron Atkinson's two FA Cups exclude him from consideration, too, even if he was unable to bring United the league title they so badly craved.

That leaves O'Farrell, Sexton, Moyes and Van Gaal.

Direct comparison is a huge challenge, though there are interesting parallels here, especially between Moyes and O'Farrell and between Sexton and Van Gaal.

Speaking in 2011, O'Farrell said, per Jim White of the Telegraph: 

"

When things were going well, Busby wrote in his newspaper column that I was the "best signing he’d ever made". Then when I was sacked he said I wasn’t his choice, that he was just a junior member of the board not responsible for the appointment. He didn’t want to take responsibility.

The fact was, as he told me, it was a five-year rebuilding job because of the mess he left and I was given just 18 months.

"

That is eerily reminiscent of Moyes' situation. Moyes had been given a six-year contract. Speaking on the Clare Balding Show on BT Sport in December 2015 (h/t the Independent), Moyes said: "After Sir Alex the job was going to be very difficult. It was going to take time to rebuild; it was a rebuilding job at Manchester United."

Jon Super/Associated Press

When announcing the appointment of Moyes, Sir Alex said, per the club's website: "When we discussed the candidates that we felt had the right attributes, we unanimously agreed on David Moyes."

Yet after it had all gone wrong, Sir Alex's book, Leading, suggested that Moyes had been far from first choice (h/t Sky Sports). 

O'Farrell won no silverware and oversaw a collapse in fortunes that shortly after he left saw them relegated to the Second Division. While Docherty was in charge when they actually went down, the trajectory under him was more positive than it had been under O'Farrell.

For Moyes, relegation was not an issue, but the sheer drama of United's complete collapse in the post-Ferguson era showed plenty of evidence that he was the wrong man for the job.

Where parallels exist between Moyes and O'Farrell, they also exist between Sexton and Van Gaal. As Jonathan Wilson wrote in the Guardian in December 2015:

"

As Old Trafford becomes increasingly frustrated by Louis van Gaal’s obsession with process, as the goalless draws rack up and the chants of "Attack! Attack! Attack, Attack, Attack!" are heard earlier and earlier, it’s perhaps worth remembering that it would not be unprecedented for a Manchester United manager to be ousted because his football was considered boring.

It’s true Dave Sexton did not win a trophy in his four years at the club but he had taken United to an FA Cup final and to second in the league and any manager who is sacked after a run of seven straight victories is entitled to feel a little aggrieved. The decision to dismiss him, it’s believed, had been taken three months before the end of the 1980-81 season after United had gone five league games without scoring.

"

So the similarities are evident.

One thing Van Gaal has in spades over the other contenders in this list is success elsewhere to prove his credentials as a manager. Sexton in next best in the list with an FA Cup and European Cup Winners' Cup to his name from his time at Chelsea, but neither O'Farrell nor Moyes can boast much more than winning the second tier with other clubs.

The other, as the tweet above alludes to, is his excellent record in United's games against their big rivals.

But at United, the huge knock against him is, of course, the money he has spent without success. Admittedly, some of that spending has been offset by plenty of outgoing players, but his squad is expensively assembled and failing.

So they rank equally poorly for silverware won, Sexton and Van Gaal lose marks for style, and O'Farrell and Moyes were the poster children for failing to adequately replace their legendary predecessors.

Jon Super/Associated Press

While the immediate vitriol adds to the heat on Van Gaal, the truth is he did steady the ship after the Moyes season and at least got United back into Europe at the first time of asking. Moyes, on the other hand, took the champions of England to a seventh-place finish in the league.

O'Farrell deserves a break, given that the rot had set in long before he took over and Sir Matt's squad was clearly in decline. Sexton, while far from exciting, at least built a team capable of winning their share of games.

Thus the ranking, from least worst to worst, runs Sexton, O'Farrell, Van Gaal and Moyes. Perhaps if he had been given more time, he could have improved matters, but Moyes counts as the worst of the post-Sir Matt Busby Manchester United managers.