When Bobby Robson took over at PSV Eindhoven in 1990, he was shocked by the culture he found there. “An English professional,” he said, “accepts the manager’s decision, but after every match here the substitutes come and visit me.” Debate has been part of Dutch football from at least the days of Rinus Michels and his “conflict principle” by which players were encouraged to critique one another’s performances, seemingly on the logic that every pearl begins with a little grit of irritation.

Perhaps it is even the case that debate is part of Dutch life. “If in Holland someone says something,” Marco van Basten said, “there is always someone else who stands up and says: ‘Yes, but…’ That starts in school and that is our way of living. If you tell someone to do something in Germany then they will say ‘OK’ and do it but that is not how we work and how we grew up. It’s a different way of being.”

That context is important when considering the wider ramifications of this week’s reports of dissatisfaction within Manchester United’s ranks. Of course it is significant if players are unhappy with the training schedule or the rigidity of the system, but Louis Van Gaal emerged from a culture in which players were expected to raise their concerns: even given his autocratic nature, it may – may – not be quite the signifier of crisis it would be at other clubs.

Van Gaal, in fact, addressed precisely this point at the end of last month. “I am amazed you say I am single-minded,” he said. “I have a philosophy. You have to come with good arguments to change my philosophy but when you have a better argument than me I change. I am an open guy.”

He spoke then with particular fondness of Wayne Rooney, who as captain was the principal mouthpiece of the players’ unhappiness. “I think he trusts me,” Van Gaal said, “so that is very important and I trust him, so when he comes to me and has remarks I always pay attention to them.

“He also has the confidence to say things that are not always normal for players to say, so that is also good for the atmosphere in the dressing room.” You don’t have to be Dutch to see the logic of that: far better for a concern to be addressed quickly than allowed to fester.

That is the positive interpretation and it may be that is all that happened here: what would be considered normal practice and healthy discussion if things were going well looks bad when performances are indifferent. There are, though, two problems with that way of looking at it. Firstly, that nothing much seems to have changed since Rooney’s representation: United’s players have appeared inhibited all season. And secondly, this is Van Gaal who, for all his fine words, has a historical tendency to the autocratic.

Van Gaal is a disciplinarian, something that was apparent even in his earliest days as Leo Beenhakker’s assistant with Ajax. If players were a couple of minutes late for training, Beenhakker would shrug; Van Gaal would be furious. When he became head coach, Van Gaal’s leadership was notably strict – so much so that Johan Cruyff has described his approach as “militaristic”, in contrast to his own desire for “individuals to think for themselves”.

“Each player,” Van Gaal said, “has to carry out his basic tasks to the best of his ability and this requires a disciplined approach on the pitch. In my opinion this can only be achieved if there is also discipline off the pitch.”

That, as the consistently outspoken Clarence Seedorf found out as he was shipped off to Sampdoria, meant debate could only go so far. Van Gaal’s career is littered with fallings-out with people, often over what look from the outside relatively trivial issues – that, indeed, is the premise of Hugo Borst’s book O, Louis. Debate inevitably leads to disagreement and, with a character as volatile as Van Gaal, that can be problematic. At Bayern Munich, the striker Luca Toni insisted there was “no dialogue” and Uli Hoeness, the general manager, accused him of “running the team as a one-man show”.

Yet more recently there has been a sense that Van Gaal has mellowed. When, early last year, as Holland manager, he took the radical decision to switch to a back three, he emphasised that he had done so only after consultation with Robin van Persie and Arjen Robben. It was seen as significant not only that he had done so but that he had spoken about it, as though trying to cultivate an atmosphere of consensus.

There were signs of that at United last season – even if you had to look for them. “He seems a good guy,” said Ander Herrera, “with a personality that maybe causes clashes in the first meetings.” Yet the old ruthlessness is still there: Van Persie was unceremoniously sold to Fenerbahce once he had outlived his usefulness. Víctor Valdés was frozen out for a supposed lack of commitment to playing for the reserves.

Van Gaal may encourage discussion and have given Rooney a privileged position to raise concerns, but the difference between debate and dissent is often in the eye of the beholder. The problem with Van Gaal is, there are rarely second chances.