Survey: Three-quarters of Man United fans still confident in Van Gaal despite slow start
FourFourTwo and Forza Football have surveyed 200,000 fans of Premier League clubs to gauge their confidence in their team's manager, players and chairman/owner. Here, Nick Harper picks through the findings to see how Manchester United fans' mood has changed over the season...
Confidence in Louis van Gaal among Manchester United fans was at an impressive 90% in the days leading up to the new season. Understandably so too, given his fine World Cup campaign with Holland, his pedigree as a title-winning coach at Bayern Munich and Barcelona and, perhaps most significantly, the announcement last summer that he possesses a lucky penis.
An opening-day defeat at home to Swansea soon put paid to that, followed by a 4-0 defeat at MK Dons in the Capital One Cup, a 5-3 car crash at Leicester and several other shambling affairs has seen confidence in Van Gaal fall as low as 62% (note: Louis van Gaal’s confidence in Louis van Gaal has never wavered and is never anything less than 110%). He’s rallied, climbing steadily back to 76% at the last count, as United have climbed slowly up the table to seventh place.
Though no one could have predicted such hopelessness as the MK Dons debacle, much of this was expected during another season of transition. United fans’ confidence in the squad began the season at a telling 75%, which dropped to 45% in the days after the Capital One Cup defeat. It currently stands at 67%, which, frankly, sounds about right.
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SURVEY See all of our findings - including data from every other Premier League club