Located at Manchester United: the panic button. Last pressed: by David Moyes in January to buy Juan Mata for £37.1m.
Under threat at the AON Training Complex: the club’s trumpeted youth policy. Last seen: Old Trafford, 6 May, on the full debuts of James Wilson, 18, and Tom Lawrence, 20, in a 3-1 defeat of Hull City.
The hope was that Louis van Gaal’s arrival as Moyes’s permanent replacement would presage a revival of United’s harnessing of homegrown talent. Ryan Giggs, in his interim spell as the No1, suggested there was a fresh crop ready for harvest when Wilson and Lawrence started against Hull, and Michael Keane, 21, was named a substitute.
On the night, Wilson scored twice and Lawrence impressed, on the left side of attack. Yet Van Gaal’s decision to allow the latter to explore a move to Leicester City, and to deem Wilson not first-team ready and so splurge £16m on a loan for Radamel Falcao, heralds a new era of fantasy football management at the club. And for the immediate future at least, the discarding of in-house talent.
Van Gaal has been known for giving youth a chance. Edgar Davids, Patrick Kluivert, Xavi, Toni Kroos, Thomas Müller: the list of stars of the European scene developed by the Dutchman is longer than United’s search for an elite central midfielder. So Van Gaal’s judgment of United’s generation-in-waiting is not about a distrust of youth, more about the current band not being up to the mark.
As with last week’s £59.7m arrival of Ángel di María, Falcao’s acquisition is a no-brainer in pure football terms. But what is also seen here is how the instability caused by Sir Alex Ferguson continues to cost United a pretty penny.
Last summer Moyes sanctioned the £27.5m purchase of Marouane Fellaini. In the winter window the Scot agreed to Mata’s £37.1m purchase: each transfer goes down as a panic buy after struggling to fit in under Moyes, and now appearing out of Van Gaal’s favour.
Something is seriously wrong in policy if £64.6m is spent and six months later the outlay becomes a failed – and expensive – experiment. Under Van Gaal Fellaini is surely doomed, while Mata appears the fall-guy however the manager decides to use Falcao, Di María and company.
Given the presence of Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie, another centre-forward would not seem a priority. Yet when the thrilling talent of Falcao suddenly became available, United felt they should move.
However, the void in central defence left by Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand has yet to be filled. Or the demand for a high-class midfielder answered.
Into this latter category falls Juventus’s Arturo Vidal, while only Marcos Rojo and Danny Blind have been bought to replace Vidic and Ferdinand. Blind is a utility player who can operate in a holding role, so is hardly a bespoke centre-back. Rojo’s price – £16m – and his most recent football, as a left-back for Argentina, similarly suggests he is not a top-line operator at the heart of defence.
Now, Van Gaal may like to commission A Stranger’s Guide to United for his squad. The seismic “churn”, to use the favoured phrase of the club executive, means when United next take to the field, against Queens Park Rangers on Sunday week, an unrecognisable XI will be roared on by the congregation.
In this reshaped outfit, David De Gea and Van Persie are the sole survivors from the team sent out at Southampton by Giggs on last season’s final day.
Then, the rest of the team-sheet read: Chris Smalling, Rio Ferdinand, Vidic, Patrice Evra, Darren Fletcher, Mata, Shinji Kagawa, Adnan Januzaj and Danny Welbeck.
The new United to face QPR could be: De Gea; Jones, Evans, Rojo; Di María, Blind, Herrera, Shaw, Rooney; Falcao, Van Persie. This is if Van Gaal retains the 3-5-2.
The 63-year-old is utilising the international fortnight to plot how best to set up and transform tactics to claw back the seven points already dropped from the opening nine.
The drab stuff that featured in Saturday’s 0-0 draw at Burnley, when United were guilty of attempting too many long balls, should be no more. Instead, Van Gaal wants glittering football that sees passes pinballed at speed from back to front. This is the hope, anyway. And with Di María and Falcao in the side, it should be easy.
Trickier – or exciting, for the self-billed trainer-coach – may be how best to deploy the attacking forces at Van Gaal’s disposal. Whatever the shape, Mata appears the big loser as Rooney may drop into the Spaniard’s No10 berth, behind the front pair of Falcao and Van Persie.
In the current 3-5-2, Phil Jones, Jonny Evans and Rojo would be the centre-backs, Di María the right wing-back, Herrera and Blind the central midfielders, and Shaw the left wing-back. An alternative to this could be a 4-3-3, with Rooney again dropped into midfield.
Van Gaal’s philosophy has centred on retraining his squad to use their “brains” rather than “instinct”. Still searching for a win after the opening four games, a theory has developed that his playing corps might not have the requisite grey matter to get the job done.
Yet asked on Saturday if there was concern his squad was taking too long to pick up the Van Gaal “philosophy”, the manager bridled. “When you are doing that after two weeks I think it’s a little bit early,” he said.
After a £160m-plus summer, though, Van Gaal now has no excuse for failure.