Worse than David Moyes? The case against Louis van Gaal is building...

Like many of his interventions on a football field, it was well-meaning but clumsy. Having helped Norwich score two goals, Phil Jones formed the first line of the defence of Louis van Gaal. “I wouldn't say it's the lowest moment,” he insisted. “I think it became pretty glum, if you like, under David Moyes.”

By mentioning the nuclear option, Jones flagged it up. Manchester United are bad, he in effect argued, but not quite as bad as they were under Moyes. Yet, accident prone as ever, Jones merely prompted a comparison between two managers: the ill-fated Scot and his successor.

And, increasingly, there is a case that Louis van Gaal is doing a worse job than Moyes. It lies not just in the fact that the younger man never went six games without a win, or that his teams averaged more goals per league game (1.64 to 1.52, a gap that seems to widen by the week). It lies in the context.

Van Gaal has had an easier ride because of Moyes. He arrived with the silverware-studded CV his predecessor lacked. He steered United to fourth place, a rise of three positions, and back into the Champions League. Unlike Moyes, whose big-game record remains poor, he secured notable triumphs over Tottenham, Liverpool and Manchester City.

Yet, in a rather ham-fisted way, Moyes facilitated Van Gaal’s apparent progress. United’s supposedly successful season last year came in a campaign when, because of their inadequacies the previous season, they had no European football. They had a free run at the Premier League. When Liverpool enjoyed that luxury in 2013-14, they managed 84 points. Van Gaal’s side mustered a mere 70, only six more than in the previous year and an improvement that could be attributed to David de Gea alone.

Moyes outperformed Van Gaal in two of the three knockout competitions. Preposterously, the Dutchman argued progress was being made because United had advanced further in the Capital One Cup this season. He has still only won one game in the competition and suffered United’s joint heaviest defeat, 4-0 to MK Dons. Moyes won four matches, though his campaign is remembered for their astonishing ineptitude in the semi-final shootout against Sunderland. Jones was among four to fail from the spot.

Compared to Van Gaal’s wretched efforts in the Champions League, Moyes’ campaign amounted to a triumph. Appalling as United were when losing 2-0 to Olympiakos in Greece, they overhauled the deficit at home. They drew with Bayern Munich. And, first and foremost, they qualified from the group. Van Gaal’s United exited it by losing in Germany. Moyes’ United advanced after winning 5-0 in Leverkusen. It was arguably United’s best European display since the 2011 semi-final.

And it highlights a broader issue. Moyes’ United were often dull and drab, compared to their predecessors, but the entertainment factor was still greater than Van Gaal’s team have offered. They have never scored five goals in a game; against anyone, anywhere. They are more flexible tactically, but are trapped in a different straitjacket. Moyes invariably played 4-4-1-1. Van Gaal usually imposes his crushingly tedious philosophy. The feeling was that Moyes failed to get the best from attacking talents, but Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie’s goal-per-game ratios were better under him than Van Gaal. Danny Welbeck and Javier Hernandez’s returns compared favourably with Radamel Falcao’s.

Moyes’ season seemed one of unprecedented indignities – the mere mention of Everton, Newcastle, Sunderland, Swansea, Liverpool and Manchester City brings some to mind – but Van Gaal has suffered as many ignominies. Think of Swansea, MK Dons, Leicester, PSV Eindhoven, Wolfsburg, Bournemouth and Norwich.

He has benefited because United became accustomed to embarrassment. Expectations were downgraded. The sense was always that the time to take over at Old Trafford was not immediately after Sir Alex Ferguson, but in succession to the successor, thus reducing the comparisons with the managerial knight. Van Gaal was contrasted with Moyes, his strutting arrogance pitted against the Scot’s self-doubt, his bulging medal collection the antithesis of Moyes’ admirable but ultimately barren spell at Everton.

Yet he profited, too, from Moyes’ assiduous scouting. Two of Van Gaal’s better buys, even if he has been reluctant to start the Spaniard, are Ander Herrera and Luke Shaw, men who were identified and tracked by his predecessor. His one marquee signing, Juan Mata, has delivered key goals for his successor. Moyes dithered too much in the transfer market, but perhaps his judgment of a player was sounder.

And the reality is that he spent £64 million. Van Gaal has paid out £285 million. He has done so after the need for an overhaul became apparent but he has never seemed to grasp the scale of the chance that presented. That has allowed him to reshape United, to produce his team whereas Moyes’ side were really Ferguson’s ageing, disenchanted, underachieving group. With a climate of patience created by his predecessor’s struggles, this was a rare opportunity. It has been squandered.

Spend £285 million, even if that sum was inflated by Ed Woodward’s capacity to pay over the odds, and you have to be judged accordingly. Van Gaal has been fortunate that it feels less has been asked of him. Perhaps he has delivered less, too. None of this is to argue that Moyes was the right man for United – sadly for a deserving character, he wasn’t – but he did not do a worse job that Van Gaal. Given the differing circumstances, he may have done a better one.