With all due respect to Leicester, who have been sensational throughout, perhaps the most surprising aspect of the season now coming to a close is the number of big teams who have performed way below expectations.
No one anticipated Claudio Ranieri and his players to be showing everybody else the way, fair enough. Yet, equally, at the start of the season who could have guessed that Chelsea would lose their way so spectacularly, changing their manager before Christmas, finishing out of the European positions and failing even to flourish in the cups? Who would have predicted Manchester City not managing to beat any of their top-six rivals, Manchester United reaching double figures for consecutive Old Trafford first-halves without a goal, or Liverpool replacing Brendan Rodgers with Jürgen Klopp? Even Arsenal, who might have been expected to profit from the opportunity thus presented, turned out to be as flaky as their supporters inwardly feared when some Tottenham-type resilience was called for. “We have to be honest and admit we mucked up our season,” Mezut Özil said this week.
There is a lot of it about. Everton arrive at Old Trafford on Sunday with many supporters pointing the finger at Roberto Martínez for mucking up their season. To an extent, an FA Cup run is buying the manager time and a degree of goodwill, though the tough questions will return should Everton lose to United – and they were soundly beaten in the fixture at Goodison in October – and continue exploring the lower half of the table.
While it is mildly irritating to have to put up with Romelu Lukaku and his dad constantly setting their sights on Champions League football, perhaps unintentionally belittling his present club as a result, Everton fans are all too aware he has a point. Everton have four or five players good enough for the Champions League bracket, arguably more than Leicester, and they include a goalscorer with a marginally better strike rate than Jamie Vardy or Riyad Mahrez. If Everton cannot even crack the top half of the table with their present squad, it becomes increasingly likely that Lukaku, Ross Barkley, John Stones et al will have to fix themselves up with Champions League football elsewhere.
The only reason the same thing is not being said about Louis van Gaal and his expensive yet erratic squad is that by dint of the mediocrity above them United still have a slim chance of a top-four finish. “We could still finish in the top three,” Van Gaal said, pushing his luck a little given that West Ham, City and Arsenal are still in the way, but basing his prognosis, as ever, on pure mathematics. “Five of our eight remaining games are at home and if we take 15 points we would be very close.”
Although the temptation is to laugh, United not having enjoyed the sort of season that makes five home wins on the bounce appear likely, the fact is that they have won their past three league games at Old Trafford, even if the first of the sequence was right at the beginning of February. In that time they have welcomed several players back from injury in addition to blooding some promising youngsters, most notably Marcus Rashford.
The way Van Gaal tells it, the last bit was the easy bit. Ángel Di María has just been moaning about how often he had to change position at United, but Van Gaal argues he ought to realise the situation was complicated. “For each game I was having to compare Di María with Ashley Young, or Juan Mata, or even Jesse Lingard, and decide which was the best to choose,” he said. “The answer was not always Di María, but with Rashford it is more straightforward. Wayne Rooney is not available, so I only have to compare Rashford with Adnan Januzaj or James Wilson.
“He has done well so far, but you can always expect that of young players when they start out. It is when they gain a reputation that it becomes more difficult. A few weeks ago Rashford had nothing to live up to, but now you start to see him in a different light. People have expectations of him now, they know how good he can be, so soon we will see if he can manage to show consistency.”
Should United manage a top-four finish, Van Gaal insists the achievement will be greater than last year’s, because injuries have made this season so much more difficult. “I had five positions injured at one point, so for sure it would be satisfying to qualify for the Champions League,” he said. “I would love to win the FA Cup this season, I always like a title, but for the club a top-four finish is the most important thing.”
Van Gaal also accepts that a top-four finish could be the key to seeing out his three-year contract, but refuses to prejudge the issue. “You can only evaluate properly when you have the facts at the end of the season,” he said. “I know United have to win things, and I am still working on that, but as Sir Alex Ferguson has just said you cannot change things around in one year. I have said many times it is a process.”
Something else that has irked Van Gaal this season is public criticism from former players turned pundits, though he resisted any temptation to score points following Gary Neville’s dismissal at Valencia. “I have nothing to say about that. I am very sorry he lost his job,” he said. “I never wish for a fellow manager to be sacked, it is not a nice experience. Maybe Gary now knows that it is not so easy managing a big club, but at least he had the guts to do it. I admire him for that.”
