Cruyff critical of Van Gaal and Mourinho

Barcelona icon Johan Cruyff has criticised Manchester United’s style under manager Louis van Gaal and called Jose Mourinho’s behaviour into question this season.

United were convincingly beaten 3-0 by Arsenal on Sunday having gone into the weekend in first place in the Premier League, with Van Gaal angry at his players’ failure to implement their game plan following the defeat.

Cruyff, however, claimed the 20-time champions do not dominate matches as they should and urged United to play a brand of football which supporters will appreciate.

“He doesn’t dominate. I like dominating football. Manchester doesn’t play like that,” he told Sky Sports News.

“I don’t think so [that Van Gaal is too cautious], but it’s strange that against strong teams they’ve got good results and with weak teams they’ve had difficulties. That’s a strange situation.

“But the results I think are second. The game is first. Money is very important but always second. In England they play different, everybody has their own style. A mix of styles is always good.

“The most important part are the fans, that people going home are happy. It’s their time off and you should give them something to enjoy.”

Cruyff went on to accuse Mourinho of putting himself in the spotlight too often following Chelsea’s dismal early-season form and controversy surrounding the manager.

Mourinho, who was caught up in a row over alleged sexist remarks directed at former Chelsea doctor Eva Carneiro, was charged with misconduct by the Football Association following a post-game rant against officials after their 3-1 loss to Southampton.

“He’s controversial. What I like about him is he’s always capable of creating good ambience within the players and what I don’t like is that he always puts himself on the first row. He should be on the second row,” Cruyff said of the former Real Madrid boss.

“It’s probably because of his background, where he’s never been cheered by 100,000 people, or whistled at by 100,000 people. Maybe it’s because of that, maybe because of the interest from the press, but I don’t think he is educating children to play football or educating for life. 

“He should behave better because he will be in the press all over the world.

“With Chelsea I enjoy some individual players, but I think they have better players on the bench then playing.”