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Everyone’s coming up with a solution to Manchester United's problems. So here’s mine.
Get rid of Louis van Gaal and install a manager with a proven record in buying central defenders and moulding them into a formidable Premier League unit.
Any Everton fans, concerned about the leakage in their own club’s defence, will know who I have in mind.
Yes, David Moyes, identifier and expert blender of Phil Jagielka, Joleon Lescott and Sylvain Distin. At a total cost — even if you throw in the full-backs Leighton Baines and Seamus Coleman — of little more than Van Gaal has paid for Marcos Rojo.
I’m just being mischievous, of course. But it is rather silly to be portraying United as a club in crisis, even if they looked it in snatching a 5-3 defeat from the jaws of handsome victory at Leicester (and that comes with apologies to supporters of the home side, who performed admirably).
Judgment of Van Gaal and his players must await their absorption, or otherwise, of his methods.
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The squad Sir Alex Ferguson handed over let Moyes down. That’s why Van Gaal had to spend a fortune on changing it.
But he also made clear there would be squalls in the first three months of the journey.
It had been the case, the Dutchman explained, when he took charge of Barcelona and Bayern Munich and the pundits, having swallowed that one at the time, surely cannot have forgotten it just five matches into the Premier League season. The club’s job, meanwhile, is to offer Van Gaal the support Moyes was so woefully denied.
There are already echoes of the Scotman’s treatment in leaks from the dressing room — “why the f**k did we substitute Di Maria?” — and those responsible have to be told that, although Van Gaal is staying in charge, they are welcome to go.
Ferguson, when manager, would certainly have made that point. And he’d be the ideal messenger now.
