TERRACE TALK: Man United - Is the end nigh for tedious reign of Louis van Gaal?

As an eight-year old, I asked for a football for Christmas. Being a good little chap in those days, I got it. 

Forty frequently misbehaved years later, I guess I must now be on Santa’s naughty list. Because the round football-related present I requested this year never materialised: Louis Van Gaal’s head remains firmly affixed to his metaphorical body, and so on we must trudge.

Not that I write the above with any finality on a Sunday afternoon. Like many Reds, I’ve spent all waking hours since the whistle at Stoke on the newsflash alert. Perhaps, by the time you read this, the Christmas miracle will have come to pass, and the joyful tidings “He’s Gone!” will have popped up on our screens.

But if we take Old Trafford’s briefers and whisperers at their word — and you don’t need me to tell you that’s the biggest ‘if’ since Telly Savalas was number one — then Louis is apparently going nowhere.

Panglossian newspaper articles have now asserted to us that he retains the support of the men who matter, and of a dressing room supposedly suddenly rallied to his case after a couple of meetings (at which Louis ate some humble pie) and a nice Crimbo lunch.

You may now murmur that there was precious little sign of any such sea-change in sentiment at Stoke. None of the ‘men who matter’ deigned to turn up at the game to display their supposed support. It seems Messrs Woodward, Gill and Ferguson found better things to do than risk being in earshot of the screams of a drowning man. The image of rats deserting a sinking ship may even spring to a suspicious mind. As for the players’ efforts, the less said the better. If that’s what they produce when allegedly fighting for a regime’s survival, let’s be grateful they weren’t around in 1940.

You may also feel inclined to mutter rather more loudly that if we see more of the same tonight, then surely not even Van Gaal’s now famous family would wish to see him put through any further humiliation. When Louis pulled out those shroud-waving lines in front of the press last Wednesday, I could only think of Helen Lovejoy’s ‘Simpsons’ line “Oh, won’t someone think of the children?”

Never mind our own kids, though, hey? Drained penniless by extortionate ticket prices for soul-destroyingly boring football, then pilloried in the playground by sneering City fans... no, it’s the multimillionaire tyrant Van Gaal’s family for whom charitable Christmas hearts must continue to bleed.

And so to tonight: High Noon or not? It depends on whose whispers you hear. Take the example of one exceedingly famous United person, whose close relative tells a contact “LVG will be sacked soon”, only for one of said personality’s mates to tell a hack next day that the legend is “standing by his man”.

Nevertheless, a couple of facts are not in doubt. Ed Woodward has wished until this past week to avoid sacking him and paying out his hefty severance unless unavoidable. (It is said by some media snouts that the club had vainly hoped on Wednesday that Louis might fall on his sword.)

Secondly, there is more resistance within the club to Jose Mourinho than you might expect from an organisation that is in such obvious desperate need of a winner.

Where does that leave those of us who have wanted LVG to go? Like many of the players, one suspects: In limbo, not knowing whether to continue to hope for deliverance, or to take the defeat on the chin and start looking for any potential positivity. Some properly committed players winning tonight would help us find the reserves to reach for the latter option.

Otherwise, it’d be hard to resist resorting to another Simpsonism: ‘release the hounds...’