This is my first thread here, I've been reading the Cafe for quite some time now and I've noticed alot of people still don't know how van Gaal likes to play the game. I'm not an expert by any means, but I do know some things van Gaal always has in his teams. Louis van Gaal is a teacher and as a Dutchy who knows him I see that he has pretty much tried to explain everything he did at Manchester United so far. He isn't fluent in English though so many don't get this, I hope I can explain this a bit better. Excuse the language, I'm Dutch aswell and might make some mistakes. I'll happily edit any errors.



There will be no TL;DR because van Gaal's ways are difficult. Please don't turn this into a thread about what you think of him, as there are enough threads to discuss that. I'd like to keep this thread purely about the tactical side and his team selections. You might disagree with his vision, but he's NOT changing so I'm just stating the facts. If you're not interested in reading all of this, please go and read another thread.



First of all: his philosophy isn't his playstyle. It's much more than this. It's essentially how he does his job: how he treats the players and staff, how he trains, which orders he gives to players and what his gameplan is. Louis van Gaal isn't fluent in English so 'philosophy' just about covers everything which he can't explain fully (he doesn't give out all his secrets either).



Louis van Gaal is a strong character. Players have to do what he says or you're not getting a spot in the team. If you're not pleasing him, he can be a nasty man. We've seen this with many players in the past, they collide with his personality or just can't get to grips with the way he wants to play the game no matter how hard they try. If you give everything and try to do as he says though he really is a nice man. He shows respect, always defends his players in front of the media and will never speak badly of a player in public. He's a real gentleman, he rather speaks about the team and not the individual. This might be annoying for us fans, but I'm sure the players appreciate it as they aren't getting burned after bad performances.



Rules:

His formations don't really matter too much as he generally plays the same and he still follows his own set rules. Some of his rules which his teams MUST have (he will not play without this, unless he has no choice because of injury):



-Left/right foot combinations. With the exception of inverted wingers(or wingsbacks), you're not getting a spot on the left side if you're not extremely good with your left. Ditto for the right side.

-4 defensive minded players. He categorizes his players (I'll come back to this) and doesn't play without 4 of these.

-3/4 creative players. These are the only players who can take risks in the team and lose the ball, the rest has to follow orders and keep possesion. These usually are the wingers, number 10 and the striker.

-In a midfield 3 he wants: a CDM, a box-to-box midfielder who's good defensively and a creative midfielder as his number 10.



Team selections:

He NEEDS 4 defensive minded players, this is the balance he keeps mentioning. We lack this. He bought players for a 352 but changed formation because it wasn't working and this left him in a spot of bother. With 352 he had 3 centrebacks+1 CDM, which is enough to please him.

With 4231 (his preferred 433) we got 2 centrebacks + Blind or Carrick. This isn't enough. He needs another midfielder, a box-to-box midfielder, who can bring him defensive balance. He tried Rooney, Fellaini, Mata and now Herrera but he isn't happy about them for this role. He will strenghten there in the mould of Strootman. The reason Fellaini is still playing is because Herrera is a creative player playing in his box-to-box role. We will never see Blind-Mata-Herrera as this would mean he doesn't have 4 defensive minded players. Having a defensive minded player at 10 isn't what he wants though so we won't see this next season.

This is why he doesn't fancy a 442 with wingers. He'd have 2 defensive midfielders, 2 wingers and 2 strikers and lack the most important player for him: his creative number 10.

The reason why he has fiddled around so much with players/formations is because he lacks the players for his own set rules, this won't be solved without transfers.



How he generally plays:

Apart from his creative players, Louis van Gaal plays every single position. He tells each player what they can and can't do. They must know these tasks from each and every teammate on the pitch aswell. Each player got their own do's and do not's which are based on their strenghts and position in the starting 11. Rooney/Blackett can give a long ball, Mata can give trough balls and Di Maria can do whatever he wants. They need to perform these instructions to perfection or they're getting dropped.



In a perfect van Gaal match everything is about the number 10. The team plays in service of getting the number 10 in an ideal position to set up a goal for one of his teammates. He wants to achieve this by keeping the ball (frustrating & tiring the opposition) and dragging the opponent around to find space. If this space isn't found then they shouldn't panic but stick to the plan and recycle possesion. Only when van Gaal sees it isn't working he switches to his plan B (which he always has). In our case that is Fellaini and a more direct style of play.



He analyses the opponent in extreme detail and comes up with a specific plan for each and every match. It doesn't matter if it's Cambridge, Swansea or Chelsea. We will set up in a way to counter their strenghts and exploit their weakness: we will adapt to all opponents whilst playing his possesion based style.



Fullbacks/defensive midfielders for example can't dribble because of the risk of losing the ball. Passing to one of them who is marked is pointless because they've got the instruction to pass it back. The players must analyse the situation: the player who can't beat a man is marked, the winger who can make an action is there, the creative midfielder is standing in a position where he can't lose the ball so I can't pass it to him, the weak spot we're targetting is there etcetera etcetera are all things a player needs to think about in a split second when he's got the ball. The whole team is thinking of attacking when a non-creative player is on the ball because of the gameplan, they aren't prepared to defend. The team is also set to attack when a creative player has the ball in a dangerous position where they can't lose the ball (close to de Gea). When a creative player has the ball in a position where they can take risks though, the team is ready to defend and it doesn't matter if say Di Maria loses the ball. That's why he doesn't like Herrera as a CDM/BTB, he has too much risks in his game. If he loses the ball when he's not 'creative' this disturbs all instructions given to the other players because they're all in the wrong places and we're extremely vulnerable to the counter.



This is why van Gaal always struggles at first because most players aren't used to his ways and some will never learn this. It's always a project for the long term though, so we won't see results immediately. It's a very hard learning curve to play how van Gaal wants as he's extremely demanding. Limitted players like Fellaini (no offense) who only got only a few strenghts blossom under him because they don't get tasks which they can't perform. They don't need to think and only do as they've been told.



Like I mentioned each and every player has a specific task for their position in the gameplan, which changes each game. That's why he sometimes decides to drop a player because he thinks he needs somebody else in his place with a different strenght for a specific match.



All 11 players doing exactly what he wants in every single situation is hard to learn, but if it's performed well it's a great style of playing the game. It's attractive, attacking football which the fans will enjoy. It's nothing like Fergie's style though so people will have to get used to it, we're not seeing the way van Gaal would like us to play though so don't worry just yet. This year is all about top 4 and laying the foundations for next year.