Gary Rowett: Celebrates Burton's cup success
Fresh from Burton's cup win over QPR, Gary Rowett explains why Louis van Gaal needs time at Manchester United and why 3-5-2 can work well.
The Capital One Cup second round threw up plenty of shocks, with Gary Rowett's own Burton beating Premier League new boys QPR 1-0 on Wednesday night after Manchester United had been sensationally thrashed 4-0 by MK Dons the previous evening.
In the second edition of his exclusive new weekly column for TEAMtalk, as part of our Football League Focus every Thursday, Gary explains why it will take time for Louis van Gaal to stamp his mark on the United team.
Transfers explained: In his first column, after a transfer row led to the exit of Tony Pulis, Gary discussed how business is done at League Two level.
It takes time to stamp your mark
You could never say that Louis van Gaal isn't a top manager because he's done everything in the game. So it's just a case of how long does he need to bring success to Manchester United.
Every manager needs time to stamp their mark on a club, and there are lots of contributory factors that can determine whether or not you can do it quickly.
It depends on the state of the club, the timing of your arrival and your ability to implement your ideas or bring in your own players as quickly as you can.
In my case at Burton I was already at the club as assistant manager so already had an idea of things we'd tried before that didn't work and that we could do a bit differently.
I also had a good idea of the squad mentality but, nevertheless, as a young manager coming into my game my first criteria was that we need to win games. It doesn't matter what your philosophy is and what your ethos is, you've got to win games.
If you can do that, which we didn't manage straight away but did at the start of the first full season, then you've got to slowly build your philosophy.
Sometimes I think at the start of that period you have to compromise a little bit and accept that you can't do it straight away.
That was my theory and it's taken until this third year for us to get as close to my philosophy as we are now.
This is the third season that I've managed Burton and it's only this season, because of the time we've had, that I've been able to build the youth players in the squad. It's only time that allows you to do that.
For Manchester United, Van Gaal has come in and will try to change the style, but it will probably take a year to 18 months to see the effect because he's got to rebuild. It's going to take a long time.
The hardest thing is to come in after a successful manager as anyone following them are, perhaps unfairly, going to be judged against that person - and obviously those standards have been very high.
Everyone said the first person to succeed Sir Alex Ferguson was going to have the most difficult job in football, and that's why I felt sorry for David Moyes because no matter who took that job, he was going to need time.
But the manager that follows that person has got a chance. Louis van Gaal is not in the worst situation.
It's the easiest thing as a manager to come in when the old one has done badly and been sacked, which is often the case.
That's the ideal scenario for a new manager coming in because you can use some sort of impact management to get the players enjoying it again and get that bounce back.
Sometimes a new manager comes in and as a player you warm to anything they do because the success has not been there under the previous regime and it's gone stale.
The benefits of 3-5-2
Van Gaal has been using a 3-5-2 system, which I predicted would be used by quite a few teams in League Two this season on the back of the World Cup.
At the start of last year lots of teams played a slightly more intricate passing style, 4-3-3 predominantly, but because of what they saw in the summer I think this season a lot of the teams will play three at the back because they've seen it and liked it.
Football moves in cycles. People think that something new they see is innovative but we played three at the back 20 years ago for Derby, which got us out of the Championship and into the Premier League. We played it at Leicester and got into the UEFA Cup. You've seen this system played down the years.
Van Gaal played it with his Holland team at the World Cup, and maybe he thinks with the players he's got it will be the best system for Manchester United.
That's important. A system only works if the players fit into it well. If they don't, you have to very quickly find players that will fit into it, and that's going to be the key to success for United.
A 3-5-2 can work well because it gives you greater flexibility. Lots of teams may want that extra security at the back - you can play it like a five when you're defending; it still gives you three bodies in midfield; it still gives you two forwards whereas a lot of formations leave you with one, which doesn't suit everyone.
You've got greater flexibility because when you're attacking you can have both your full-backs attacking and still have the security of three central defenders and possibly one sitting midfielder. You're always defending with four and that's the key to it.
I also think it allows you better lines of passing. If you're playing from the back one of your centre-halves can come out with the ball and have an option to wing-back, an option to one of three midfielders, and you still have two strikers. It can be really unpredictable when you're in possession for the opponents.
Conversely, when you're playing against it you can use a front three and put the wide men very high and see if you can occupy the back three or turn it into a back five.
You can also play two versus one down the sides with your full-backs because there's only one man down the width of the pitch for them, which is the wing back.
Ultimately, some teams can play it really well, but others can play it really badly. There's no golden recipe for any formation, it just depends on the team's philosophy and manager - and players ultimately will make that formation come to life.
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