Why sacking Louis Van Gaal wouldn't solve all Manchester United's problems

Tonight will go down as one of Manchester United's most embarrasing on the football field. The 20 times champions of England, three time champions of Europe lost to a team founded in 1999. FC Midtylland - just six days older than my sister - beat them 2-1 in arguably the greatest night in their history. In doing so, they increased the call for Louis Van Gaal to be sacked as United manager. Personally I agree with the calls from the majority of the fans, he is not the right man for the job, and the fans are right to be disgusted with their performances, especially tonight.

But the problems don't lie solely with Van Gaal. Yes it's his squad and his players, but you can't account for injuries and unfortunately United have suffered a lot with them so far this season. They currently have twelve first team options out injured, including captain Wayne Rooney and tonight David De Gea suffered an injury pre match, which could bring more bad news to Old Trafford.

The signings that Van Gaal made in the summer weren't bad signings, far from it. Memphis Depay had been lighting up the Eredivise, Matteo Darmian was brought in following a solid season with Torino, Morgan Schneiderlin was looked at as a good piece of business and Anthony Martial came to Manchester with huge potential. From those signings however, only Schneiderlin and Martial have proved themselves in a red shirt. Saying that Depay has flopped would be an understatement and the jury is still out on Darmian due to injuries.

Despite his 'positive' signings in the summer, his decision to sell Old Trafford favourites will always lead to criticism of his management. Rafael da Silva was sold to Lyon, Angel Di Maria to PSG and Javier Hernandez to Bayer Leverkusen. The latter was sold with United having only three recognised strikers (Rooney, Martial and James Wilson who was sent out on loan to Brighton) and has flourished in Germany, winning player of the month three times in a row and scoring 13 times. 

And who would replace Van Gaal as manager? Jose Mourinho is the odds on favourite, but if he couldn't inspire a Chelsea side that stormed to the league title months earlier, what luck would he have with this squad? A squad which is a lot weaker then the one that he left behind at Stamford Bridge.

Mauricio Pochettino has been another name linked with the job, but would he be given the time to sort things out? It took him a full year at Tottenham to get them playing to his philosophy, would the fans/board be willing to sacrifice the Champions League to potentially get back to the glory days? Poor David Moyes wasn't given any time at all before he was turfed out.

A third option is Ryan Giggs, Van Gaal's assistant and apparant heir to the throne. He was given four games after Moyes' sacking and won two of his four games. In my opinion he doesn't have the experience that the United fans would want or need to get them back to the top. 

As i stated earlier, I do think Van Gaal should leave United, but at this moment in time there isn't anybody that could muster a late Champions League charge at Old Trafford and there in itself is the main problem.

Oh to rewind to five years ago United fans.....

Thank you for reading.

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