Van Gaal's Reputation Suffers Humiliating Blow
Updated: 4:50pm UK, Wednesday 27 August 2014
By Paul Kelso, Sports Correspondent
São Paulo and Milton Keynes do not have a lot in common bar their capacity to confuse visitors.
For Louis Van Gaal, they must feel like they are on different planets, let alone continents, after his side lost its way in a town renowned for its roundabouts.
Seven weeks ago, he was in the Brazilian city preparing his Dutch side for a World Cup semi-final.
Today he is dissecting how a League Cup visit to England's most famous new town exposed so many old flaws in his side.
United have lost to lower league opposition in the League Cup before, but seldom has a result carried such symbolic weight.
The 4-0 defeat to League One MK Dons was a huge embarrassment for United and a blow to Van Gaal's aura.
It was their worst defeat in the competition in 19 years, the last time they featured in the second round.
Without a win in the league, United's understudies were exposed as lacking the cohesion, craft and, most troubling, the appetite to resist well motivated opposition.
Van Gaal's reputation is built on tactical vision and the ability to instil confidence. There was little sign of either in Buckinghamshire.
This is traditionally a competition in which United play a third-string side, mindful of European challenges ahead.
Despite no Champions or Europa League football to distract them, Van Gaal did the same and paid for it.
Worryingly for the club, it was the senior players who made up half the side that were most culpable.
Johnny Evans had a shocking evening while Anderson seemed to lack the stomach for the fight, if not the stomach.
David De Gea and Danny Welbeck did their best but were helpless as United subsided.
Van Gaal will have learned much from the capitulation and, whatever his private reaction, he certainly did not appear to be a man gripped by panic post-match.
He offered mitigating factors, including nine players out injured, though did not explain why he omitted many first-team players who were fit.
Not for the first time he also said re-building will take time, adding in a foray into the third person that United would have to buy into "Louis Van Gaal philosophy".
That's not all United will have to buy. On the day they broke the British transfer record to bring Angel Di Maria to Old Trafford, this defeat confirmed that the £60m outlay should not be the last.
Central midfield and defence are exposed in this United squad and there was little sign of suitable cover at Stadium MK.
Whether the club, in the shape of executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward, can deliver remains to be seen.
Woodward, architect of the club's phenomenal commercial success, is now responsible for rebuilding the football side of the business, until 18 months ago the exclusive domain of Sir Alex Ferguson, assisted by David Gill.
With both gone and little in the way of structure remaining, Woodward is effectively having to play director of football and chief executive.
The jury is out on whether he can juggle both roles effectively. What seems certain is that, without the lure of Champions League football, he will have to pay a premium to tempt others to follow Di Maria's path.
Meanwhile Van Gaal has to work with what he has, starting at Burnley on Saturday. Lose there and the Dutchman's cast-iron reputation will suffer another dent.
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