After weeks of speculation, Manchester United officially announced the appointment of Louis van Gaal as its new manager yesterday. Van Gaal, 62, was given a three-year contract and will take charge of the Red Devils once he has completed his obligations with the Netherlands at the World Cup this summer. The Dutchman becomes United's first non-British or Irish manager in club history. Manchester United fans surely hope that Van Gaal’s a better selection than the Board's previous chosen one. It was also announced that interim player-manager Ryan Giggs will join van Gaal’s staff as an assistant.
Although this is van Gaal’s first job in the English Premier League, he has substantial experience at other top European clubs, previously holding the top spot at Ajax, Barcelona, AZ Alkmaar and Bayern Munich. Quite simply, van Gaal is a proven winner as he has won league titles at all of his previous stops.
Van Gaal takes charge of a massive reformation project that must take place this summer at United. Manchester United is coming off a seventh place finish in the Barclays Premier League, its worst finish since 1990-91. Rumors have indicated that van Gaal could be given as much as 150 million pounds to spend in the summer transfer window. Of course, with no Champions League (or even Europa League) football to offer this season, van Gaal will have to utilize the prestige of the club and his own successful history as a manager to convince players to sign on for a domestic-only campaign.
In addition to deciding which players to bring in (Edison Cavani? Toni Kroos?), van Gaal must determine what to do with the players he already has. With Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic both moving on, van Gaal will have to decide what other players will be leaving Old Trafford - with Nani, Anderson, and Antonio Valencia all potentially on the move. Van Gaal must also determine the most effective to way to deploy Juan Mata, Wayne Rooney, and Dutch captain Robin van Persie, a task that seemed to be beyond Moyes’s capabilities. Some have suggested that perhaps Rooney will move back into the middle 3 of van Gaal’s preferred 4-3-3 attack, playing a deeper role than that to which he is accustomed. Whatever he decides, taking full advantage of these in-house options to compliment the new additions brought in with his summer war chest will be van Gaal’s most important task in the pre-season.
Although Manchester United is one of the most popular clubs in the world, van Gaal’s task in resurrecting the team’s fortunes will not be an easy one. Much of the blame for the disappointing season (quite rightly) fell on Moyes’s shoulders, but the truth is that the club is aging and in need of reformation. With Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal all above the Red Devils in the table, and all looking to improve their own squads this summer (with the carrot of Champions League football to offer), transforming United into a championship contender would be a truly remarkable achievement for van Gaal in his first season. More realistically, the aim should be to get back into the Champions League for the following season, making this a multi-year effort.
