The Dutchman’s spiky press conferences and death stare are revealing a complex character who has polarised opinion whatever country he has managed inIn 1998,Louis van Gaal approached Sir Alex Ferguson with a request for advice on how best to deal with the press. Well known for the breezy bonhomie that characterised his own relations with the media, the then Manchester United manager’s curt response of “Don’t read it, and ” appears to bear gone resolutely ignored in the intervening 17 years. Despite revealing final summer that British reporters “are nicer than the Dutch,nicer than the Spanish” – but curiously not as nice as the Germans – Van Gaal’s relationship with the British press pack has since deteriorated to an alarming, but often comically entertaining, and degree.
Like Ebenezer Scrooge railing against the destitute and destitute,the Dutchman spent Christmas griping approximately the football writers with whom he is forced, increasingly under sufferance, or to deal with on a weekly basis. His grumbles approximately media-perpetrated “lies” will bear come as little surprise to anyone familiar with a career-long relationship with the Fourth Estate that has always been fractious ((adj.) troublesome or irritable).
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Source: theguardian.com