Stoke 2 Manchester United 0: Shrewd Mark Hughes gives Louis van Gaal a lesson in clarity

United find themselves with an individual incapable of instilling some of the very fundamental qualities which Hughes’ Stoke are demonstrating all over the pitch

Memphis Depay’s header back to David De Gea falls short and leads to Stoke City’s opening goal against Manchester United (Getty Images)

As if the imminent prospect of playing Chelsea does not present enough fears, there was death by 1,000 cuts for Louis van Gaal and his fraying reputation late on Saturday.

When he walked down the tight little back corridor at the Britainnia Stadium to discuss what had unfolded, he found Mark Hughes there, eulogising on how this was “a confidence thing” for Manchester United. “Louis,” said Hughes by way of acknowledgement, closing down the conversation as the Dutchman, avoiding eye contact, marched by.

It was about 10 minutes later that Stoke full-back Erik Pieters walked down the same corridor to a press-conference table seat and related, in the course of a conversation about his three-year contract extension at Stoke – where he is hugely popular – how Van Gaal had told him that signing here would be unambitious. “I asked Van Gaal for advice,” Pieters said of his felow countryman. “He is a manager who has lots of experience. Advice is always good for a player. I chose to talk to the club, make my own choices.”

Pieters, his testimony and his Staffordshire career development into a left-back that captain Ryan Shawcross described in the aftermath of the 2-0 victory as “probably right up there” among the division’s best, said everything about the way the comparative managerial merits of Van Gaal and Hughes. United hired the Dutchman because of that supposed big-club need for a big-name manager, capable of fulfilling their fixation with having players on the Ballon d’Or shortlist.

Yet they find themselves with an individual incapable of instilling some of the very fundamental qualities which Hughes’ eighth-placed players are demonstrating all over the pitch: intent, clarity, intuition, pleasure.

If anything, Van Gaal’s own post-match ruminations on the game were even more of a cause for concern than events on the field. Initially, there was some of his incomprehensible intellectualising, about the paralysing effects of pressure and fear.

“I have analysed that as a consequence of circumstances,” said Van Gaal, the great “I am” conveying, as he always does, the impression that he considers himself to be some all-seeing God figure. Yet the cold, stark reality was that this man did not expect the players to be better against Chelsea this evening and he did not believe there was anything in the slightest he could do to lift their confidence before that game. “No, because it’s not so easy any more,” he declared. Strip away the bombast and the eccentricities of his spoken English and you are left with a leader saying he cannot lead and motivate. What an extraordinary admission was that.

His high and mighty ways might well have worked for some young apprentices who have hung on his every word over the years, but in this United squad, players are shot to pieces by the way he has taken away beautiful spontaneity and made football such a struggle. The performance was by no means worse than the home defeat to Norwich City, despite Van Gaal’s claim to the contrary. But it felt very significant that Michael Carrick’s response to the question of whether there was support for the manager among the players provoked only an expression of visceral loyalty to “this great club”. No mention of doing things for the manager.

“Listen, people talk about support, but it is not like the lads go out and don’t play,” Carrick said. “We go out there as professionals who are playing for this special club. We are in a privileged position. And it comes from within as well. I have a lot of pride in myself and in my performances and I think it is a bit disrespectful when people say that the lads aren’t trying for the manager.”

Compare that to how Hughes’ players feel about him. He is actually one of the most intelligent Premier League managers, remembered at Manchester City for the way he threw himself into the business-planning sessions and relished the idea of developing intellectually. You just don’t hear him talking about it, because he happens to be one of the least extroverted of managers. He has bought extremely shrewdly, having learned the lesson of his disastrous Queen’s Park Rangers spell, when the interference of owner Tony Fernandes affected transfer dealings more catastrophically than many appreciate.

The creative players – heart-on-the-sleeve Marko Arnautovic, beautifully creative Bojan Krkic and Xherdan Shaqiri, who terrorised Daley Blind – spoke for themselves once more on Saturday. But in the second-half, in the performance of Philipp Wollscheid, quietly picked up by Hughes from Bayer Leverkusen while Van Gaal was engaged in a be-all and end-all quest for Borussia Dortmund’s Mats Hummels, there was more evidence of a manager who knows what it takes. “He is very under-rated,” Shawcross said of Wollscheid. “He is a very good player. He has come from Bayer Leverkusen, who are not a poor team, he has played for Germany. He deserves more credit than he gets.”

Stoke are not the finished article. A prolific goalscorer would help them against the lesser, deep-lying teams whom they find it hard to break down. But what wouldn’t United give for some of the certainties which are written through their football? “When you are winning, the game becomes very easy... everything tends to fall into place,” Carrick concluded, with a command of the moment which you hoped his manager would have demonstrated. “A bad run like this is when you find out certain things about yourself and about how you deal with tough times.”