An unconventional new biography of Louis van Gaal offers what its author, Hugo Borst, describes as a “journey into the sinister recesses” of the Manchester United manager’s character — ruthless, harsh, even offensive on the one hand, yet warm, generous and caring on the other, traits all underpinned, of course, by an unshakeable belief that his way is the right way.

“It was the equivalent of Robin van Persie marching up to the Glazers, telling them to sell Wayne Rooney and then toddling off to announce it to the press”

In the eight years that footballer Louis van Gaal calls Het Kasteel home, Sparta Rotterdam put up a brave fight in the shadow of the Big Three: Ajax, PSV and Feyenoord. But in Louis’s second