And so the dust settles on Louis Van Gaal’s first season as Manchester United manager. We’ll say he’s done a decent job. He’s done exactly what was asked of him - deliver Champions League football - with quite a few injuries to deal with along the way.

But one thing that you notice about Van Gaal is how he sees the game. He’s an educator and wants everyone to see the game how he sees it. The ‘long pass’ rant springs to mind here, but in all of his press conferences he’ll spend a lot of time enlightening the assembled journalists on some matter of tactics or footballing philosophy. An audience with Van Gaal is a seminar led by the Dutch master.

And that translates into how he sees the English game too.

It’s obvious that Van Gaal is a very talented man, fiercely intelligent and very astute. But maybe his vision of the English game colours the way his team is set up this season.

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He started the season with a 3-5-2 - something a little different in the Premier League, it must be said. So that sparked a little bit of a media frenzy as pundits debated the merits of the system, especially asking whether or not United’s defenders were up to the task of playing in it.

He moved onto another inventive system with a diamond. Not just any old diamond though, and that’s why United found it hard to play in that system - because Michael Carrick would slot between the centre backs and pick the ball up from very deep. Daley Blind just wasn’t cut out for playing that role in Carrick’s absence, and so United looked weak at the back.

The truth is, though, that United weren’t weak at the back, they were weak up front. They had so much possession in games without being able to break down the opposition. And that’s where I think Van Gaal was a little bit naive in his first season.

The Premier League loves pace and power, and in many ways it’s what makes the league exciting. It’s also what makes teams deadly on the counter attack. And that’s where Van Gaal’s team found themselves conceding goals last season. When they couldn’t break teams down, they just tried to pass more. And when one pass was inevitably misplaced, a counter could begin.

But instead of trying using his own pace and explosivity to break down the stubborn defences, Van Gaal opted for the height and strength of Marouane Fellaini.

During the World Cup, Belgium manager Marc Wilmots used Fellaini to great effect as an impact sub later on in the game when Belgium needed something different to break down a defence. He was a great plan B.

But Van Gaal seems to have decided that his initial tactic didn’t work for most of the season, and that Fellaini should become his new ‘plan A’. Fellaini became the end point for almost all of United’s attacks in the final few weeks of the season, like an old-fashioned English target man.

And that’s the naivety from Van Gaal. He should have stuck to his guns and used Di Maria or Valencia or Young to be the end point of United’s attacks. Instead, he fought power with power - something the Premier League has been doing for years. The difference is, the teams with the power in their side are the ones who don’t have the silky passers like Herrera and Carrick. Van Gaal wanted both and came unstuck.

It’s a nice idea to play ‘long ball football’ within a passing game, it’s a nice touch to try to incorporate directness within a sophisticated system, an attractive system. But Van Gaal should stick to his guns.

Next season we might still see Fellaini up front, but with the arrival of Memphis Depay there’s more pace and explosivity on its way to Old Trafford, and that might just be a sign that Van Gaal is changing his mind again.

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