MAN UNITED’S LOSS to Swansea at the weekend prompted an increasingly familiar sense of despair among United fans.
Some critics and supporters even suggested that LVG has failed to really improve matters since taking over from David Moyes.
While Van Gaal won’t be judged definitively until the end of the season, we couldn’t resist assessing the stats and comparing and contrasting these two individuals based on LVG’s first 26 league games in charge.
The following are some of the more interesting findings…
- Van Gaal’s United are in a much healthier league position compared with this time last year — they are fourth, as opposed to seventh under Moyes. That said, they have just five more points (47 compared to 42)
- While United’s home form has been drastically better under LVG (they have the second-best home record in the league), their away record has been conspicuously worse — in total, Moyes won 10 of his 18 away matches at United, whereas so far, Van Gaal has won just three out of 13.
- While Moyes inherited a title-winning squad, he spent just £67.9million compared with the £150million given to Van Gaal.
- In total, LVG has 13 victories and 5 losses compared with 12 wins and eight defeats under Moyes at the same point last year.
- United’s scoring ratio is better under LVG (1.81 goals per game compared with 1.69 under Moyes).
- LVG’s record against the so-called ‘big’ Premier League teams is superior — of last year’s top four, only Man City have beaten them, while they’ve picked up league wins over both Arsenal and Liverpool. By contrast, under Moyes, Liverpool and Man City both did the double over United, and Chelsea also beat them.
- 2014-15 is the first season ever that Swansea have done the double over United. Conversely, under Moyes, the Red Devils themselves did the double over the Welsh side, winning 4-1 away and 2-0 at home in the league.
What do you think? All things considered, has Van Gaal done any better than Moyes so far? Let us know in the comments section below.
