• Premier League

Van Gaal produces dossier in long-ball row with Allardyce

Louis van Gaal has hit back at Sam Allardyce for his jibe that Manchester United adopted a long-ball game against West Ham and taken the unusual step of producing a four-page dossier to try to prove the claim was wrong.

The Dutchman, clearly irked by Allardyce's comments, showed reporters a series of diagrams and statistics relating to the 1-1 draw at Upton Park on Sunday, reminiscent of Rafael Benitez's infamous "facts" rant at Sir Alex Ferguson in 2009.

But instead of attempting to correct individual points made by Allardyce, as Benitez, then manager at Liverpool, did in response to his Manchester United counterpart's observations, Van Gaal claimed interpretation was key.

Louis van Gaal says Sam Allardyce misinterpreted the facts © Getty Images

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"When a colleague of mine is saying this kind of thing, you have to see the data and you have to put the data in the right context," Van Gaal, the current United manager, said. "When you have 60% ball possession do you think that you can do that with long balls?

"Because I expected this question, I have made an interpretation of the data for this game and then I have to say that it is not a good interpretation from Big Sam. It is not so difficult to read. You have to look at the data and then you will see that we did play long balls, but long balls wide, rather than to the strikers. Long balls, in the width, to switch the play.

"I am sorry, but we are playing ball-possession and after 70 minutes we did not succeed, in spite of many chances in the second half, so then I changed my playing style. Then, of course, with the quality of [Marouane] Fellaini we played more forward balls and we scored from that, so I think it was a very good decision of the manager.

"But when you see overall the long ball [statistics] you see West Ham have played 71% of the long balls to the forwards and we [played] 49%. You can copy it and you can go to Big Sam and he will get a good interpretation."

Van Gaal's statistics showed that United played almost twice as many long balls as West Ham - 83 against 45 - and that 24.2% of their passes were made across a large distance compared to 22.5% for Allardyce's team, but he argued the nature of the pass was important.

Some may argue that Van Gaal responding to the jibe that United were "jsut thumping it forward" and reigniting the debate over United's style, for which they have been criticised - and not just by Allardyce, was a sign that the United manager was starting to feel under pressure.

He has tried to create a new approach at Old Trafford since replacing David Moyes last summer and, after struggling to make his methods stick, results, if not free-flowing football, have started to come.

Van Gaal's next test comes on Wednesday, when United face Burnley without the help of Michael Carrick, who is still sidelined by a calf injury, and Luke Shaw who is suspended after being sent off at West Ham.

LVG's pamphlet (1/4) pic.twitter.com/BIAGBivM0S— Paul Hirst (@hirstclass) February 10, 2015

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