Incredibly, Louis van Gaal and Manchester United just keep on hanging in there.
The Dutchman looked set for the chop three weeks ago, while his team’s run of eight winless games seemed to have put paid to their hopes of a Premier League title challenge and even put a Champions League spot in huge jeopardy. What’s more, Wayne Rooney was scrambling for any kind of form with his status as the club’s talisman under significant scrutiny.
But United’s 1-0 win at Liverpool on Sunday, given to them by Rooney’s fifth goal in four matches since the turn of the year, means that anything is still possible in this most crazy of seasons.
While the Red Devils could quite easily collapse again at any moment, it is also true that they are now right back in the Champions League reckoning and staking a claim for consideration in the battle at the very top of the table.
They remain as unremarkable in attack as they have been for most of the season, sending just two shots on target in the entire 90 minutes at Anfield, but in terms of their effectiveness there can be little arguing with their record so far in 2016.
Van Gaal will not change his ways, continuing to demand that his men treasure possession of the ball above all else. But the Dutchman has at least ensured that he is likely to see out the rest of the campaign no matter what United do or don’t achieve between now and May.
Results against Liverpool will always weigh heavily in the boardroom at Old Trafford, and failure on Sunday could well have led to a rethink over Van Gaal’s future. Instead Rooney’s late winner buys his manager a lengthy period of credit.
Those United fans who have spent much of this season demanding ‘attack, attack, attack’ from their side will probably not get their way, but anything is still possible in terms of the club’s destiny this term.
A Premier League table which shows Leicester City to be a part of the title race, West Ham and Stoke challenging for Champions League honours and Chelsea trying to keep the bottom three at arm’s length is warning enough that predictions are a fool’s game. And there can be no real telling from here what might happen in United’s 2015-16 campaign.
But the form of Rooney, the likelihood that they will have the majority of the ball in most of their remaining fixtures, and the potential for additions in the final two weeks of the January transfer window all provide a cocktail which will have Van Gaal looking at things much more positively than he was just a few short weeks ago.
0 Comments
Share and comment. Enjoy!