To Manchester United’s many fans, it must have been a long-awaited pleasure to watch their team with its many recently imported “Gaalacticos” demolish Queens Park Rangers at Old Trafford after a poor start to the season and after a truly miserable last season. The signs were there in their 4:0 win, the signs of future success and restored pride.
However, as their Dutch manager Louis van Gaal pointed out after the game against QPR, his new team can, will, and need to play much better. Even man-of-the-match, the Argentine wizard Ángel Di María, who so far has been worth every penny of his record breaking transfer fee as he seems to have naturally and effortlessly assumed the role of talisman, received a few words of critique from the demanding Iron Tulip who thought Di María had been sloppy in possession on a few occasions. The victory against QPR was important, and the manner in which it was secured brought back the memories of Alex Ferguson’s flamboyant and relentlessly attacking Manchester United teams. But only time will tell if the QPR match was the one in which the team began its journey back to where the club sees itself, that is, at the summit of English and European soccer.
To me, we still need to see four things.
1. We need to see consistency. One match alone doesn’t do the trick. Van Gaal must put together a string of victories, not only to prove that the QPR match was not a mere coincidence (as many victories proved to be under David Moyes), but also in order to catch up with José Mourinho’s pacesetters from Chelsea.
2. Consistency in terms of collecting victories should be coupled with a continuously progressive evolution of Van Gaal’s attacking style of soccer. One thing is to play well and play beautiful soccer against QPR at Old Trafford, another thing is to keep doing it home and away and thus be true to Manchester United’s traditions of balancing competitiveness and trophies with beauty, excellence, and entertainment.
3. We need to see is Manchester United being able to compete against Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool, and Arsenal, the four most obvious teams vying for the Champions League spots. Last season was a disaster against these rivals since Moyes only collected five out a possible twenty-four points. The real tests come when Manchester United step out at Old Trafford on 26 October to face Chelsea and a week later when they will travel across town to meet Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium.
4. Finally, in order for Manchester United to be really back on track and converging with their true identity again we need to see the team score decisive goals in “Fergie time”. This predatory ability was a vital component of the team’s fear factor during Alex Ferguson’s reign, an ability that only seemed to be self-reinforcing as the opponent teams often looked as if they almost expected Manchester United to score a late winner. David Moyes never succeeded in sustaining this tradition of beastly instinct in injury time, but if Van Gaal makes his Gaalacticos gel he will have every opportunity to restore this Manchester United talent.
