Louis van Gaal: My Vision… Manchester United manager insists players must display tactical nous with Daley Blind and Kevin Strootman set to arrive at Old Trafford

Louis van Gaal outlines football philosophy in coaching manual he wrote in Holland

  New Manchester United boss writes that his training is based ‘on an attacking style of football. Never defensive!’

If the Manchester United players are in any doubt about what their new boss Louis van Gaal requires from them, a coaching manual he wrote in Holland but never translated into English is a good place to start,according to the Daily Mail.

Modestly entitled ‘Visie’ (Vision), the great man outlines his philosophy in words that would be clear to even the biggest football simpleton. ‘My training is based on an attacking style of football. Never defensive!’ is the emphatic message, complete with self-penned exclamation mark.

The full-on lesson continues: ‘To destruct the organization of the opposition my team must pass the ball around at the highest possible speed with a terrific use of all positions. When we lose the ball I don’t want my team to run backwards, I want them to win it back in the quickest possible time.’

  ‘I deliberately call my training models technical/tactical, because in my sessions one is linked to the other,’ he wrote. ‘I will be right on top of every player, demanding each player will give the maximum in each passing session.’

As United’s stars lap up the rays in California ahead of their first match of the Van Gaal era against Los Angeles Galaxy on Wednesday, the 62-year-old’s vision is both a motivation and a warning.

For all his incredible achievements with Ajax, Barcelona, AZ Alkmaar and the Dutch national team, Van Gaal has never coached a British player before and he is intrigued as much as anyone else by whether British players can cope with his demands.

Van Gaal does not want to turn Old Trafford into ‘Little Holland’ but such are the potential tactical deficiencies among the English players he is inheriting a couple of reinforcements are needed, particularly with Michael Carrick sidelined for three months with ankle-ligament damage sustained in training on Thursday.

Dutch World Cup star Daley Blind is his first priority. The 24-year-old Ajax player showed in Brazil, where he helped Van Gaal’s Holland reach the semi-final, that he is infinitely better at adapting to different positions than Wayne Rooney, Ashley Young, Phil Jones or Chris Smalling, for example.

Executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward will be politely asked to secure the signature of Blind in the face of growing interest from Barcelona. He can play left-back, wing-back or holding midfield. His father Danny was one of Van Gaal’s assistants in Brazil.

And another Dutch international, Kevin Strootman, will arrive from Roma by January at the latest. He would already be at Old Trafford if not for a knee injury that forced him to miss the World Cup.

As a player, he will have to buy into Van Gaal’s preference for moving the ball quickly, willingness to win the ball back and be a model citizen off the pitch; standards that saw the coach fall out with Franck Ribery and Luca Toni at Bayern Munich when they fell below them.

M.D