Van Gaal is very much living up to his reputation.
He's renowned for being single minded in his approach, as bacon was, and will not accept anything less than what he deems is appropriate in terms of work rate etc.
He's an old school manager in a new world. He's out of place and whilst he's at the rags we don't have to worry too much.
I said it last season when they replaced Vidic and Ferdinand with no one and instead signed about 100 wing backs. They then failed to pick any of those players and used Valencia instead. Our dismal result at the swamp was down to a loss of intensity. We started at 100 miles an hour, could have been three up after ten minutes but dropped off when we scored and allowed them to play to their strengths.
Depay is a decent prospect but Di Maria is the better player. They've not replace Van Persie and Falcao was an awful signing and one we should be happy we walked away from.
They go into this season having added more balance via Schneiderlin and on paper a lot more quality by adding Schweinsteiger. His injury record speaks for itself though, he's Hargreaves MachII and he won't play very often. Carrick's also injury prone which leave them with a soft centre still and they're yet to sort out their central defence.
He'll get some good results but I'm not particularly worried about them fighting for the title, it'll be more of the same with a lack of balance and a poor defence and they've not got much strength in depth in the striker department either.