This may prove to be, as José Mourinho is said to believe, Louis van Gaal’s last season in charge of Manchester United or it may prove, as Van Gaal insists to be the case, merely his penultimate campaign at Old Trafford but, after his team again showed their inconsistency in failing to capitalise on a later slip by City, this month’s FA Cup final began to look ever more vital last night.
A home draw with Leicester City, the champions in waiting, left Van Gaal’s side four points behind City in the quest for the fourth and final Champions League place but with the luxury of a game in hand.
United must visit Norwich City, who are fighting to stay in the division, on Saturday and West Ham United, in the London club’s final game at Upton Park, the following Tuesday before concluding the season at home to Bournemouth, a sequence of games that offers some hope of overhauling City, after their emphatic defeat away to Southampton yesterday.
When Manuel Pellegrini, the City manager, announced on February 1 that he is to leave the club at the end of the season, his team enjoyed a six-point cushion over United but promptly embarked on a run of two victories from seven league games.
Unfortunately for United, even though an impressive 1-0 victory at the Etihad Stadium in late March reduced the deficit to a point, their form before and since was too erratic to capitalise on City’s mid-season hiatus and, Van Gaal, right, conceded last night, leaves his team requiring a perfect end to the season to have any hope of finishing fourth.
Advertisement
“I said we have to win every game that we have left to play,” said Van Gaal just as City were kicking off at St Mary’s Stadium yesterday. “So now, already, we are not closing the gap.
“We are depending on City because Arsenal have won [on Saturday] so that’s a big gap for three matches. Mathematically, we can do it, but it shall be very difficult. So our hope is now [based on] what City are doing.”
Late last week, Van Gaal had launched the latest in a long line of defences for United’s season while also stating defiantly: “So next year, you see me again” — his most forthright proclamation yet that he expects to return to Old Trafford for the third, and final, year of the contract he signed in 2014.
That defence always features reference to a debilitating injury list endured by his squad, a solid enough claim, although one that does not necessarily explain his sterile and unambitious approach to so much of the campaign and some baffling personnel decisions.
Even while claiming that this season’s appearance in the Champions League and longer run in the Capital One Cup represents progress, Van Gaal was honest enough to confess that finishing fifth this month would be not only one place lower than 12 months ago but, more significantly, the most important place lower, as it would cost his team qualification for Europe’s most important competition.
Advertisement
All of which, surely, adds ever more significance to that FA Cup final date with Crystal Palace at Wembley two weeks on Saturday, a competition that United have not won for a dozen years.
Van Gaal, famously, impressed the United hierarchy in his job interview two years ago by presenting them with a weighty dossier in which he outlined his philosophy of how a football club should be structured, a discussion that ended, according to the Dutchman, with United insisting that he sign a three-year contract — rather than the two years he preferred — to oversee the Old Trafford re-boot.
Two-thirds of the way through that process, Van Gaal has a number of positives to show for his endeavours, not least the introduction and development of a number of talented young players at Old Trafford, and a cup final triumph would be yet more tangible evidence of improvement.
After all, those United supporters with longer memories can cite the legend that the last time their team faced Crystal Palace in an FA Cup final, in 1990, the run to Wembley and eventual success in a replay saved Alex Ferguson from being dismissed as manager. What price history repeating itself this month?