Louis van Gaal admitted last night that the projected £58.8 million fee paid by Manchester United for Anthony Martial was “ridiculous”, but claimed that the teenage France striker had been signed with the club’s next manager firmly in mind.
Whether that turns out to be Ryan Giggs remains to be seen, but Van Gaal also said that he expects his assistant to succeed him as manager at Old Trafford and that he would be satisfied with a top-three finish in the Barclays Premier League this season.
Martial is expected to make his United debut at home to Liverpool on Saturday, but while Van Gaal acknowledged that the fee paid last week to Monaco for the 19-year-old was a “ridiculous amount of money” and reflective of the “crazy world we are in”, the Dutchman bemoaned the inflated prices the club are now quoted by rivals.
Van Gaal — who said he felt that footballers were paid too much — said that United are routinely quoted “£10 million more” for a player than other clubs and also expressed frustration that his critics focus on the money he has spent and largely ignore what he has recouped in sales. United’s projected gross outlay in 14 months under Van Gaal is £278 million, but their net spend is about £164 million.
Despite a lack of options up front, which were further depleted last night after Van Gaal’s admission that James Wilson, the England Under-21 striker, has left on loan, the United manager said that he would afford Martial the protection he believes he needs. “He will play some games and not play some games,” Van Gaal said.
Speaking alongside Giggs at Lancashire’s Old Trafford cricket ground last night at an event staged for executive United season ticket-holders, Van Gaal insisted that his successor would be the main beneficiary of the Martial signing. “I have not bought Martial for me, I have bought him for the next manager of Manchester United,” he said.
Van Gaal is firmly of the view that will be Giggs, who has been the Dutchman’s assistant since retiring at the end of the 2013-14 season after a brief stint as caretaker manager in the wake of David Moyes’s sacking. “I feel I am introducing the next manager of Manchester United,” Van Gaal said of Giggs.
Van Gaal said that he decided to offer Giggs the role of his assistant after listening to the Welshman’s assessment of every player in United’s squad during a 90-minute meeting they had in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, in May last year.
United’s style of football and modest results under Van Gaal have invited criticism from a series of prominent former players, including Gary Neville and Paul Scholes, and the Dutchman said that the apparent lack of trust shown by such figures upset him. “It makes me sick because they should know that it takes time,” he said.
Nonetheless, Van Gaal is confident that United are on the right trajectory and believes that the club could wrest the league title from Chelsea “if everything goes for us”, even though he said that he would be satisfied with a place in the top three. He acknowledged that Manchester City, who lead the table after winning their opening four matches, “look great”.
Van Gaal suggested that the vast number of injuries United suffered last season hampered the team but said that the absence of injuries this term was reflective of the benefits of his training methods.
Defending his decision to send Adnan Januzaj on loan to Borussia Dortmund, Van Gaal said that he had given the Belgium forward every chance to prove his worth, but that he had not seen enough evidence of his quality last season or during the start of this campaign.
He added that Januzaj must improve his mentality and needed to be playing week in, week out to develop. Van Gaal said that Andreas Pereira, the Brazil Under-20 midfielder, would be given a chance to stake a first-team claim in Januzaj’s absence.
On Wilson, Van Gaal said that he had opted to send the striker out on loan — Derby County were reported to be the club he had joined last night — but that United had an emergency recall clause in the event they need him back.
Meanwhile, Van Gaal is thought to be confident that talks with David De Gea will help to refocus the goalkeeper’s mind as he moves towards restoring the Spaniard to United’s starting line-up against Liverpool in the wake of his collapsed move to Real Madrid.
Van Gaal will assess De Gea’s performances and attitude in training over the next couple of days before making a final decision.
De Gea, who made his first competitive start for almost four months in Spain’s 1-0 win over FYR Macedonia on Tuesday evening, was not considered for selection for United’s opening six matches of the season amid the uncertainty over his future.
