Rodgers won’t be too impressed with Van Gaal’s words
The worst thing that can happen to a manager and his side ahead of a big game is some unsavoury news to leak to the press. In the past, if Liverpool were due to play a huge game on the Sunday afternoon, you could practically guarantee that there’d be some controversy or other breaking in the Sunday papers.
This time though, it’s United who are suffering, as news broke on Thursday that many of Manchester United’s senior players have ‘revolted’ against methods and tactics that they deem to be too rigid and stifling.
According to reports, Rooney and Carrick went to have ‘words’ with the manager to iron the problems out. If there’s any truth to this, you can only imagine how well that went down.
But Van Gaal is a man that has a track record for not getting along with his players. Sure, his track record speaks for itself but as Jose Mourinho has found out, if you’re going to win that way, you’re going to burn a lot of bridges along the way.
If there’s any truth to these rumours then it can only play into Liverpool’s hands and, even if there isn’t, the fuss created by the press is likely to have unsettled the opposition camp.
That said, Van Gaal still seemed fairly confident (almost dismissive, you might say) at Lancashire County Cricket Ground on Wednesday evening when he stated: “I am sorry, the defeat [to Swansea], was my fault. Don’t worry, we will win on Saturday.”
Confident words, indeed.
