Galacticos...

Louis Van Gaal with his giant Filofax..

Manchester Utd. fans must be lamenting the departure of Sir Alex Fergusson and David Gill more than ever.. the 'model' that brought them so much success in years gone by, seems to have been replaced with a 'buy first, work it out later' approach. It's almost as if they have adopted the Galacticos handbook to buying players, yet worryingly without the guarantee that the players are even world class...

Close to £250m has been spent since Van Gaal took over at the start of 2014 and with that sort of spend, many owners would be expecting success this season. Amazingly Van Gaal, presumably with the board's backing, has stated that the team are still very much a 'work in progress' and that he would like to win the title before his contract is up in 2017; that gives him another two seasons including this one. It's just as well because it looks as if the team have a long way to go...

Some of LVG's thinking might be questionable. He has been quoted as saying:

"I have not bought Martial for me, I have bought him for the next manager of Manchester United"

Er, well that's very good of you Louis, but why? You could always have spent the £36m (possibly rising to £58m) on a brilliant proven talent, to help you during your tenure. Maybe it was the Glazer's idea.

I like Van Gaal as a manager, he's a great character, another one of those 'mad genius' types like Mourinho. They are friends. He is one of those managers that you don't fire easily, but I wonder if United will have to do just that if they want to win anything meaningful before 2017.