Underwhelming results and even less whelming performances rotted away at the foundations of King Louis' short and largely unsuccessful Manchester United empire, climaxing in its complete collapse on Monday night - just days after its ultimate achievement of winning the FA Cup.

But as Louis van Gaal jets off to his holiday home in Portugal - coincidentally enough, to maintain a safe distance from the coronation of the Portuguese succeeding him - one gets the feeling the retrospective telescope of historical hindsight will look upon the Dutchman's reign on the Old Trafford throne far more fondly than the current supply of derogatory evaluations.

The term 'philosophy' was the loudest soundbite of LVG's appointment in summer 2014, quickly becoming his self-proclaimed mandate to rule over Old Trafford, but as is often the case with ideologues, proved to be the sword he fatally fell on.

It was branded as Manchester United's route back to the big-time, yet couldn't even guarantee consistent Champions League qualification - the least acceptable outcome for a club of the Red Devils' stature.

Yet, what Louis van Gaal brought to Manchester United was a new direction - one of his own choosing, based on his own ideals.

It is true that David Moyes sucked up the majority of the stickiness of the wicket Sir Alex Ferguson left behind, but whilst the Scot offered nothing more than a pale imitation of his predecessor in almost every aspect of his torrid ten months, Van Gaal dared to take the club down a different path. Ultimately, it proved to be the wrong one - but taking the initiative deserves some credit, especially when it resulted in the first trophy of the post-Ferguson era.

And although a laboured, unfashionable and undynamic style of play simply juxtaposed too sharply with the rip-roaring attacks United fans had become acclimatised with throughout Ferguson's affluent reign, there is no debate Louis van Gaal kept his end of the bargain in regards to the other core aspect of the historical Old Trafford philosophy - investing playing time, money and faith in young players.

Indeed, of the £250million LVG spent throughout his four transfer windows at the helm, almost two thirds of that sum was devoted to signing under the age of 22, the biggest buys being Luke Shaw, Memphis Depay and Anthony Martial.

Injuries have impacted the former's progression whilst a selfish mentality appears to be holding Depay back, but a 17-goal haul this season has established Martial as one of the most exciting young players in Europe and Van Gaal's £37million investment already seems like good value for money. Heralded equally as future world-class stars, all three could prove to be in a couple of years time.

Likewise, amid an era in which the Premier League has become notorious for buying young talent instead of believing in their own, the Dutchman has dared to stand out against the grain. 15 academy players - including later additions Timothy Fosu-Mensah from Ajax and Welshman Regan Poole - received their first-team debuts under Louis van Gaal.

That's almost twice as much as successor Jose Mourinho managed during an extra half-season at Chelsea, despite the Blues' academy team boasting back-to-back UEFA Youth League titles and five FA Youth Cups in the last seven years, and five times as many as David Moyes and Ryan Giggs issued during the 2013/14 season. Likewise, of the 28 players to make their United debuts under LVG, including signings, all but ten were aged 21 or younger.

But it has not been a token gesture by any stretch of the imagination. The majority of LVG's academy product debutants have gone on to enjoy recurring roles in the starting Xi - the most obvious example being striker Marcus Rashford, the 18-year-old now in contention to feature for England at the European Championship - and factoring out the one-game wonders, that's 16 first team appearances per debut.

No doubt, there has been an element of fate as well as design; injuries to senior stars forced Van Gaal to dip into the academy ranks; but belief in young talent has been a recurring trend throughout LVG's career and he clearly has an eye for it.

He promoted the likes of Andres Iniesta, Xavi and Carles Puyol at Barcelona and Thomas Muller, Toni Kroos and David Alaba at Bayern Munich, all of whom went on to become World Cup and/or Champions League winners, whilst his CL-winning 1995 Ajax side included countless future world-beaters - Clarence Seedorf, Edwin van der Sar, Edgar Davids, Frank de Boer, Ronald de Boer, Marc Overmars and Patrick Kluivert to name a few.

Likewise, it's incredibly telling of his ability to nurture youngsters that the academy product who made his debut during Van Gaal's first competitive fixture in charge of Manchester United, Jesse Lingard, scored the winning goal in his last.

So could a few of LVG's debutants go on to reach similar heights as some of the aforementioned world-class names? Well, there is an overriding concern that Jose Mourinho's pragmatic, short-term approach could see youth development at Old Trafford take a backward step. But there is no doubt King Louis has left a legacy behind at United and in future years, his two-term spell could be looked back upon as the era in which the flowers of later success first began to sprout.

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