• Premier League

'United have an identity crisis under Van Gaal'

Manchester United are in the midst of an "identity crisis" under Louis van Gaal, according to the club's former first-team coach Rene Meulensteen.

Meulensteen served under Sir Alex Ferguson from 2007-2013 and left as David Moyes was hired before last season.

He says United, third in the Premier League, are torn between following Van Gaal's commands and maintaining the "Ferguson DNA" represented by assistant coach Ryan Giggs.

Louis van Gaal has guided Manchester United to third place © Getty Images

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"I find it a big surprise that Van Gaal has not managed yet to make the team play better,'' Meulensteen told the Daily Telegraph. "We are nearly at Christmas now and look at the performances. I still don't see a flow, a rhythm. They win five on the spin but they were absolutely pummelled at Arsenal and should have lost against Southampton.

"He will blow up at some point. That's part of his make-up. Remember these words. If I'm speaking to you, I'm exchanging information over what I feel passionate about but I don't lecture you. I'm not preaching to you.

"If you go and sit with Van Gaal, you'll come out thinking 'I'm 12 years old'. He will speak to you as if you have no clue. He will look at you and be thinking 'what are you asking me? I'm Louis van Gaal'. He's not my cup of tea. It's one of the reasons I quite like [Southampton boss] Ronald [Koeman] as a person - he doesn't preach or lecture people like the other guy does.

"I said to Ryan [Giggs]: 'I'm so glad you're staying at the club in this role because you're the one holding on to this life-line to the Ferguson era but I'm telling you it's going to be the most difficult three years ahead of you.' The lifeline is the connection to Ferguson, and what Ryan grew up with, the DNA that Ferguson put in the club. If Giggs leaves the club, that's it, done, gone, forget it, he's the last one holding on to it. It would be a very sad moment."

Meulensteen said United need to return to Ferguson's philosophy of playing the same way both at home and away.

"United have been thrown into a bit of an identity crisis. Under Ferguson, it was routines, straightforward, people didn't have to think about it. We just rolled on.

"That sequence was suddenly broken, and players were affected. With Ferguson, we had the same approach home and away: 'We are United and we are going to dominate.' First five minutes we went to get the initiative, get the lead, 'run the energy out of their legs', the manager used to say, keep picking them off, waiting for the next goal, just to kill them off."

"They need to click back into it. Juan Mata's a good player and so are Ander Herrera, Wayne Rooney, Robin van Persie and Michael Carrick. It's about circulating the ball. That's one of the reasons why I think Marouane Fellaini is not a United player. I don't think he has that attribute in him, that constant circulating the ball."

Meulensteen is not the first former United man to criticise Van Gaal this week. In his weekly column for the Independent on Friday, Paul Scholes said he feared United would lose out to Manchester City in the battle for the best local youth talent.

Van Gaal was not impressed with Scholes' words, particularly when they came just four days after Gary Neville had compared his former club to a pub team.

"Paul Scholes. Also a legend. He has to pay attention to his words also," said Van Gaal, who responded with the same barb when he was informed of Neville's criticisms following the highly fortuitous 2-1 win over Southampton on Monday.

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