Former Manchester United manager Louis Van Gaal has launched an attack on the club for the manner in which he was replaced by Jose Mourinho. The larger than life Dutchman was sacked two years into a three-year contract as an FA Cup win could not gloss over the damage of failing to qualify for the Champions League.
Van Gaal was speaking to Dutch publication Algemeen Dagblad [via The Mirror] when he revealed his disappointment at how things ended, claiming that the board and the players worked together to oust him as manager in a plot like you would see in a film.
While he does concede that he understands why Man Utd wanted Jose Mourinho in charge, LVG revealed that he demanded every penny he was owed once his contract was terminated because he felt betrayed by the board.
The pressure was enormous with my head in the noose and they went right behind my back. I think it was all orchestrated like a film and it was done very much behind my back right from January.
My wife, Truus, told me that the attitude of the board had changed. Women have this intuition. They smell it. I denied it, even to my wife, because between me as a manager and the chief executive Ed Woodward, everything was running as normal.
Suddenly former players started to yap in the media that we were playing boring football and Mourinho's sacking made it very attractive for everyone to keep bashing me.
I do understand that choice of United to get Mourinho. I never wanted more than two years anyway. Man United wanted three years.
Suddenly, Mourinho was out after one-and-a-half years of my contract and I knew United wanted him one day. They told me only after it was leaked out and it was the biggest disappointment of my life.
United did not discuss this with me. If they had come to me with the Mourinho plan then I could have said 'okay, let's give it everything for the last six months, complete commitment to each other and the team and then Jose Mourinho can take over.'
They could have saved the last year of my salary by doing that but after what happened I made them pay every penny.
As explosive as the comments are, he has got a point. He appears to be most upset by finding out about Mourinho's appointment in the media, and not through the club, which is poor form and something that could have been avoided.
That said, the pressure he felt and the 'noose' around his neck were as a result of the sub-par performances his team were giving on the pitch, and there was nothing sudden about former players like Paul Scholes and Rio Ferdinand 'yapping' in the media, they were correct to express their concern.
It's classic LVG, but while some will feel bad about the way his departure was handled, most will just be happy that it did as the club appear to be getting back to where they want to be under Mourinho.
