It’s perhaps a little unfair to compare two managers who have taken on very different jobs.
But it’s hard not to look at what Jurgen Klopp has done at Liverpool and relate it to Louis van Gaal’s achievements down the road.
Liverpool aren’t the finished article of course – Klopp has suffered a bad home defeat to Crystal Palace in his short time at the club.
But any fan of Liverpool will tell you that the team now has a different style. An obvious style and an buccaneering one.
Liverpool get forward quickly and with purpose. When they don’t have the ball they squeeze the life out of the opponent high up the field. Under Klopp, Liverpool throw caution to the wind.
And, in 6 weeks, that has yielded a 3-1 win at Chelsea and the hugely impressive 4-1 win at Manchester City.
In 18 months we can honestly say that the 4-2 defeat of Manchester City at home was the only genuinely rousing United under LvG.
Klopp’s style is paying dividends in The Prem and he hasn’t even spent any money.
But is Louis’s football philosophy suited to England?
He has spent way over 100m net and the team looks more toothless in attack than before he began at Manchester United.
Yes the defence is solid. But that’s not hard to achieve when you put 7 players behind the ball at all times.
The progress at Manchester United has been happening at a snail’s pace at best and we are ow beginning to wonder, for the first time, if LvG actually knows how to take the club any further forward.
