Man United boss makes for a refreshing change in the Premier League
Premier League managers are a notoriously hypocritical bunch. While defending their own players or ruing a controversial decision by the referee is understandable at any level of the game, the extremes to which many in the top flight’s gaffers take their partisan approach often borders on the absurd.
Depending simply on whether an opposition player or one of the manager’s own is the culprit, a red card for a dangerous challenge, a raised flag for a borderline offside or a booking for a perceived penalty box dive will either be incandescently deplored as a terrible call or praised as the correct one by the chameleonesque manager in a post-match interview, with his opinion on such matters able to change in a remarkably short space of time.
Sir Alex Ferguson was well-known for his two-faced attitude, and since his retirement Jose Mourinho has been more than happy to assume the mantle of the Premier League’s chief master of duplicity. The Portuguese makes no attempt to hide his hypocrisy, and even seems to relish it. For him, it is all part of the act – Mourinho the pantomime villain who still manages to triumph in the end, in spite of his numerous detractors. Though instances of his two-faced nature are as numerous as they are humerous – his hypocritical gripes can be trusted to be delivered with his trademark sardonic wit – a particular example from last season stands out.
After a debatable penalty was awarded to Sunderland in a league match at Stamford Bridge, which helped the Black Cats inflict a first-ever home league defeat for Mourinho as manager of Chelsea, the Portuguese stole the show in the post-match interview by sarcastically congratulating referee Mike Dean and, bizarrely, referee’s chief Mike Reily – who wasn’t even present at the game – for their work in supposedly derailing the Blues’ title charge. Mourinho had every right to feel aggrieved at the manner of the defeat and the awarding of a penalty was certainly a point of contention, however his own team have benefitted from such decisions in the past, after which the Portguese has felt no need to ‘congratulate’ the performance of the officials.
The truth is that Mourinho merely happens to be the most vocal and charismatic example of managerial hypocrisy, and most coaches in the top flight are equally as culpable of flitting between two different viewpoints when it suits their team best.
However, the arrival of a certain Dutchman in the Premier League has brought about a refreshing degree of honesty and transparency in the otherwise crafty domain of managerial interviews. Manchester United boss Louis van Gaal’s refusal to pin the blame on others for his team’s shortcomings has been like a breath of fresh air this season. After his side’s 5-3 loss to Leicester City, a defeat which must have been particularly grating given that the Red Devils were leading 3-1 at one point, van Gaal took the gargantuan step of criticising his team instead of the referee, saying the following momentous words when asked about a highly controversial penalty which sparked the Leicester comeback: “For the first penalty it is always the referee [who you talk about] but you don’t have to do that as a player. You know you are in the penalty area and you allow the referee to whistle if you make a challenge. I don’t know if it is a penalty but we have to look at ourselves because we made such big errors as a team.”
Such stoicism and good sportsmanship after a genuine miscarriage of footballing justice must have stupefied those interviewing the Dutchman, and van Gaal once again defied convention over the weekend by agreeing with the referee’s decision to send off Manchester United captain Wayne Rooney in the game against West Ham United. Unlike the penalty at the King Power Stadium, Rooney’s dismissal was the correct call, however siding with the match official rather than the club captain was still bold of van Gaal, his unwillingness to don the blinkers of hypocrisy admirable.
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Louis van Gaal’s honesty is a way of treating his players as responsible adults, and serves as a productive means for improvement and identifying weaknesses in the team’s play. More than anything, however, his approach makes for a refreshing change to the tiresome, two-faced attitudes of many other Premier League managers. Long may it continue.
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