Michaels Owen strongly criticized Louis van Gaal's actions during the transfer window, stating that the "Manchester United" team 18 months ago was even better than the current one, despite the 250 million pounds that the Dutchman spent on new players.
After losing to the "Wolfsburg" team 2:3, which eliminated the team from further Champions League matches, Owen admitted that he is not convinced by the actions taken by the coach and believes that mistakes were made in the transfer market.
"I believe that despite all the money invested, the team is now even worse. Looking at the players that Van Gaal has let go over the past 18 months, I think we could have assembled a better team than the one that was on the field today."
"Rafael, Vidic, Johnny Evans, and Evra in defense. Cleverley, Kagawa, Van Persie, Chicharito, and Nani. We talked about the fact that only two players among those footballers would make it into the starting lineup today. Chris Smalling would probably make it into the lineup, and maybe Michael Carrick would sneak in as well. Besides these players, the footballers who were let go are better than those who played today, despite the large investments," Owen said after the match on BT Sport.
Owen also suggests that a thorough analysis should be conducted on Louis van Gaal's inability to reach the next stage of the Champions League, and he, a former English national team member, has doubts about the one and a half years that the coach has been at "United."
"There is a question of whether they can trust Louis van Gaal and allow him to spend those millions. I'm not looking at this match or this season, I'm talking about all 18 months that he has been coaching," Owen said.
"He spent 250 million pounds. Last year the team didn't play in Europe, so all he had to do was prepare for the Premier League and the cups. But they were humiliated 4-0 by the MK Dons team, and were knocked out of the FA Cup after losing to Arsenal. In the Premier League, they hung on to fourth place."
"This season, they were knocked out of the league cup after losing to Middlesbrough, and after getting an easy group in the Champions League, they managed to get knocked out. Despite that, week after week they demonstrate poor play. These 18 months have been worse than they should have been. With all that money spent, it is not understandable. Now he is under immense pressure," Owen concluded his rant about the "United" coach.
