Wins, they say, are the only currency that matters. Win matches and all other sins will be forgiven. Perhaps. But as Old Trafford becomes increasingly frustrated by Louis van Gaal’s obsession with process, as the goalless draws rack up and the chants of “Attack! Attack! Attack, Attack, Attack!” are heard earlier and earlier, it’s perhaps worth remembering that it would not be unprecedented for a Manchester United manager to be ousted because his football was considered boring.

It’s true Dave Sexton did not win a trophy in his four years at the club but he had taken United to an FA Cup final and to second in the league and any manager who is sacked after a run of seven straight victories is entitled to feel a little aggrieved. The decision to dismiss him, it’s believed, had been taken three months before the end of the 1980-81 season after United had gone five league games without scoring. Judge me when Ray Wilkins is back, Sexton pleaded, and the midfielder’s return did indeed prompt the upturn in form but by then the decision to replace the manager had been taken.

On the surface, Sexton and Van Gaal have little in common. Sexton was someone who was always anxious in public. He far preferred talking to his players than to journalists, who came to mimic his habit of swallowing before beginning an answer. Van Gaal press conferences may not always be comfortable but they are compelling; there is always a sense he could say or do anything at any time. Sexton suffered by comparison both with his predecessor and with his neighbours.

Whoever had replaced Tommy Docherty in the summer of 1977 was in an awkward position. Docherty was bold, brash and popular, and his cavalier 4-2-4 with Gordon Hill on one wing and Steve Coppell on the other had just won the FA Cup. But Docherty was sacked after setting up home with Mary Brown, the wife of the club physiotherapist. Sexton was a very different character, sensible, staid and cerebral – or, as Docherty cruelly put it, the only man to survive a total personality bypass.

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And as Sexton was umming and ahhing through press conferences, journalists who remembered the days of drinking wine in the manager’s office as Docherty regaled them with an abundance of anecdotes, found themselves warming increasingly to the more ebullient personalities at City: Malcolm Allison and then John Bond. So long as Manuel Pellegrini remains at City, Van Gaal will always be the big Friday draw in Manchester and his eccentricities mean he offers more copy than David Moyes as well.

The relationship with the press reflected a more general difference in ethos. Sexton had been part of the Academy at West Ham; he had pushed the salt and pepper containers around the cafe table with Allison, Bond, Noel Cantwell, Ernie Gregory and Ken Brown. He had won an FA Cup and a Cup-Winners Cup with Chelsea and had taken QPR to a second-place finish in the league.

Sexton was more thoughtful, more cautious than Allison or Bond, and the result was a style of football that emphasised shape. Hill finished the 1977-78 season with 17 goals but his reluctance to track back meant he was offloaded to Derby.

Perceptions can be misleading. United scored 67 goals in 1977-78, the fifth-highest tally in the division, but conceded 63; only six teams let in more. They scored 60 and let in 63 the following season. In 1979-80, when they began their final game level on points with Liverpool but lost 4-1 at Leeds, they scored 65 and let in 35. Only in that fourth and final season was the goals return poor: 51 scored to 36 conceded. Gordon McQueen, one of Sexton’s more successful signings, finds the idea he was a defensive coach laughable.

But the public image was of boredom, of overanalysis, of making things too complicated, and the feeling Sexton did not play the sort of football Old Trafford expected chimed with a sense he was somehow an outsider. Manchester was happy to embrace Scottish managers but it had reservations about a Londoner. Even the £825,000 signing of Ray Wilkins was initially greeted with suspicion.

Martin Edwards succeeded his father, Louis, as chairman in 1980 and there followed a string of transfer embarrassments. Sexton tried to pay a record fee for the Coventry goalkeeper Jim Blyth, but he failed his medical. Kevin Mabbutt turned United down to stay at Bristol City.

The promising local striker Andy Ritchie was cast as a prototype Danny Welbeck as he was sold to Brighton to make way for the £1.25m signing of Garry Birtles, who failed to score in his first season and soon returned to Nottingham Forest.

Mickey Thomas, signed to replace Hill, was so nervous on his first day he crashed his car on the way in to training, and continued to be beset by anxiety. Nikola Jovanovic, the elegant central defender signed from Red Star Belgrade left within a year, baffled by English football and its drink culture (and who exactly owned his club BMW).

Sexton did not believe in the get-it-wide, get-it-in-the-box philosophy Docherty had espoused and that United fans had come to believe was their birthright, and his explanations of his theory only compounded the belief he was too conservative for the job. At the same time he was undermined by a scatter-gun transfer policy. The echoes are unmistakable.

No one could accuse Van Gaal of being predictable or lacking the necessary bombast but history suggests that style can get a manager sacked at Old Trafford.