Louis van Gaal came in for a lot of criticism during his time at Old Trafford, especially in the last season, I even hold my hands up to dishing out plenty of it myself and one United player think his former boss has been treated unfairly. Does he have a point?
The Dutchman's first season as United boss saw them finish fourth in what looked like a good job in the middle of a rebuilding process after David Moyes but failure to get anything out of Angel di Maria saw him leave in the summer and things didn't get much better after that with turgid football, being knocked out of the Champions League football in the group stages and then a failure to qualify for the tournament for next season all making his tenure turn sour pretty quickly.
His sacking this week came after victory in the FA Cup final. It led to many saying the timing of his sacking and how it all came about through a leak in the media was classless by the club and was harsh on their manager and one LvG signing, Daley Blind, agrees with those sentiments defending his former boss:
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"I've enjoyed working with the manager so much. I would have liked to have carried on for a long while. A manager at a big club in the Premier League will always be under pressure. But in the case of Van Gaal he has not been treated fairly over the last six months.
"I think a manager with the status of Van Gaal, who has achieved so much in his career, deserved more respect. No matter what was said or written about him as a manager, he never stopped protecting us as players. He has defended us under any kind of circumstances, he was always taking the stick instead of us."
Blind has been one of the success stories of Van Gaal's time at Old Trafford having moved around most positions in defence and midfield and generally played pretty well and has played the second most amount of minutes for United this season only behind Chris Smalling.
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The son of Dutch manager Danny, Daley played for LvG at the World Cup in Brazil in 2014 and was one of the players who really impressed and it was no wonder he followed the manager from Ajax when he arrived in Manchester.
Blind reckons that Van Gaal holds the respect of most of his teammates despite his sacking: "I think I can say that the whole squad is grateful for that, for what he has done in that respect for us as players."
The truth is that through negative football and a snippy attitude towards the media Van Gaal often made a rod for his own back however the former Bayern boss does deserve credit for rebuilding the squad and leaving them in a better state for Jose Mourinho than Moyes did for him or arguably Sir Alex Ferguson did for Moyes.
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Van Gaal also deserves credit for bringing some young players through, sometimes by accident, and winning the club's first trophy in the very difficult post Fergie era. Ultimately it was never going to be enough for him to keep his job.
Featured Image Credit:Topics: Louis van Gaal, Manchester United, Daley Blind, Netherlands