10 Things Man Utd Want You To Forget About Louis Van Gaal
2. His Ineptitude As A Fitness Trainer
Manchester United have been ruing their luck as theyve suffered an injury crisis early into the new season, but outspoken Dutch coach Raymond Verheijen believes Van Gaals lack of fitness knowledge is the real cause of Uniteds problems, as reported by Bleacher Report. Its certainly an embarrassing conundrum to have a manager working the players too hard that they are succumbing to injury, and Verheijen feels Van Gaal is tactically astute, but inept on the training ground. LVG is tactically superior to most other coaches but planning & periodisation is not his strongest point: double sessions & muscles injuries. During the World Cup preparation, the Dutch players had to do frequent double sessions, so not surprisingly the muscle injuries accumulated, he said during the 2014 World Cup on Twitter. Rafael Van der Vaart (calf), Jonathan De Guzman (hamstring), Robin Van Persie (groin), Leroy Fer (hamstring), Nigel De Jong (groin), Wesley Sneijder (hamstring) amongst other muscle injuries. This pattern is no hindsight but was already identified well before the World Cup as this is just common sense. Verheijen also criticised Van Gaal over make the same mistakes at Manchester United, with the Red Devils boss ordering summer arrival Luke Shaw to do extra training to get fit, which ironically led to the England international succumbing to injury. At Man United, in the first few weeks, Louis Van Gaal has applied the same approach and, as expected, with the same result: accumulation of injuries. The Luke Shaw case is the climax of Manchester Uniteds predictable pre-season injury crisis due to too much training too soon, he added on Twitter.
Crippy Cooke, 23, is a freelance Football Writer contributing to What Culture. He's had work featured on Zoo, MSN, London 24, The Telegraph, The Huffington Post, and was recently named Writer of the Year on FTBpro - while also a nominee for Best Male Blog in the Football Blogging Awards.
