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Manchester United go into tomorrow's league match versus Arsenal potentially down a stunning 12 first-team players, and there's no one to blame for this easily-preventable calamity other than manager Louis van Gaal.
He was brought in to the club to turn around their disastrous 2013/14 season, a dark period of time when the club failed to successfully escape from the shadows and memories of recently-departed manager Sir Alex Ferguson with fellow Scot David Moyes. Instead, United began their season under their third manager in as many years by dropping three points at home versus Swansea City and drawing their next two matches against relegation-fodder Sunderland and Burnley. If only seeing two points out of their first nine was van Gaal's only problem.
To date, a total of 39 (!!!) injuries have been suffered since van Gaal started working with United following the World Cup in July. All could have been stopped if van Gaal had the foresight to heed advice from the world's foremost expert in medicine, muscles, and sport, Raymond Verheijen. It was the Dutch fitness coach, the man media outlets turn to for extremely-critical comments whenever any notable player goes down with injury, who sounded the alarm bells this past summer (shortly after declaring van Gaal would be "perfect" for United):
During the World Cup preparation, the Dutch players had to do frequent double sessions, so not surprisingly the muscle injuries accumulated…
— Raymond Verheijen (@raymondverheije) August 14, 2014
At Man United, in the first few weeks, LVG has applied the same approach and, as expected, with the same result: accumulation of injuries.
— Raymond Verheijen (@raymondverheije) August 14, 2014
The Luke Shaw case is the climax of Manchester United’s predictable pre-season injury crisis due to 'too much training too soon'.
— Raymond Verheijen (@raymondverheije) August 14, 2014
LVG’s coaching skills & tactical superiority often compensate for this periodisation deficiency but there is clearly room for improvement.
— Raymond Verheijen (@raymondverheije) August 14, 2014
Now look at United. Jesse Lingard, Jonny Evans, Radamel Falcao, Phil Jones, Ashley Young, Rafael, Marcos Rojo, Michael Carrick, David de Gea, Daley Blind, Angel Di Maria, and Luke Shaw - all out with injuries that could have been stopped had van Gaal checked Twitter back in August to get free, professional advice from Raymond Verheijen. It's not a stretch to say that had he picked up his cell phone and rang the sporadically-employed training whisperer, United would have stayed 100% healthy up through this point in the season.
You can't spell "injury crisis" without taking the 'i' and 's' from "Louis van Gaal." That's more than enough evidence that Louis van Gaal has decimated Manchester United's squad with his own, careless training methods and failure to consult fitness coaches willing to dispense advice on this topic - regardless if you asked for their opinion to begin with.