Dear Dychey: United’s recovery is fake news – I should get the credit!

You put in the hours, late nights, early starts, the project comes together - and then someone else gets the plaudits. Dear Dychey is listening...

Manchester United manager Louis Van Gaal

*Dear Dychey is Paddy Power’s Agony Aunt column. Any apparent resemblance to any figures around football is purely coincidental.

Dear Dychey,

Transcribed from Dychey’s managerial hotline…

Hello. I do not need your help – you help me? Hahaha, the idea, it is ludicrous – but I ask for you to make clear that I am not getting tired of the fake news I hear so much about my time in Manchester.

I am retired now, I am trying to relax in my new home in Portugal, but all of your English press still chase me for interviews about this and that – “Louis, why was your team so boring?”, “Louis, could you contact Greater Manchester Police to help them with their inquiries into the ransacking of Angel di Maria’s house?”, “Louis, is it true that the only thing black holes can get sucked into is the void inside Ryan Giggs where a personality should be?” – this endless nonsense I get each week from your journalists.

The best advice Dear Dychey has is to place your football bets at PaddyPower.com

With news people like this, it is no surprise to me now that the Norwegian pixie man has dazzled you all with his cheeky smiles and soft voice. Van Gaal’s robust honesty was too much for your simple brains to handle.

The brilliant football philosophy certainly was.

All you talked about was boredom. How can you not see Marcos Rojo kicking the ball – and anyone near it – towards left-winger Marouane Fellaini was anything other than brilliant attacking football? Or Daley Blind passing the ball back to Phil Jones, again, and again, and again, and again… You wear opponents down like this. It is obvious.

And can I ask what was so boring about losing to Wolfsburg in the Champions League 3-2? Or losing 5-3 to Leicester? How about throwing away a chance to win the league, allowing the most magical story in English football history to unfold? Was that “boring”?

I think not.

My philosophy is to build the character and spirit as well as the technique of young players – and nothing builds resilience like failure.

Look at Rashford now. Was it not Van Gaal who put him in the team? He’d be nowhere without my “boring” football. Martial, I signed him. I chatted to McTominay once. You can see the effect, no?

And Mike Smalling used to play like he should’ve been in the youth team back then. He’s almost competent now.

I put it to you, Dychey, that United now are only doing so well because of the philosophy I put in place to help these players meet their potential. I know I will never get the credit from your media – they are more interested in false stories than false nines – but a fellow football man like yourself will understand these things I’m sure.

Message ends

Ryan Giggs Louis Van Gaal

Dr Dychey says: I appreciate the respect you show, one football man to another, in asking my view, but this is an advice column, not the Infowars twitter account, and I have to say I think you’ve been hitting the Sangria a bit too hard there Louis with some of your wild theories.

It’s easier to believe 12ft lizards are running the planet than that your United team were entertaining.

And you don’t need to be a Russian spy to work out that the change in manager at United has altered a lot around the club – including the way those players you want to take credit for are performing.

I’d suggest you stop worrying about any “fake news” in the papers around your time at United, and maybe wind your neck in with some of the embellished stories of your own – I don’t think I’ve come across an ego this inflated since Big Sam launched an air balloon solely under the power of his own farts – and you’ll have a much happier retirement.

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LONDON, ENGLAND – JULY 20: Gordon Taylor attends a reception hosted by the US Ambassador Matthew Barzun at his residence at Winfield House to welcome the Special Olympics GB’s World Games team on July 20, 2015 in London, England. (Photo by Tristan Fewings/Getty Images)

Dear Dychey,

After nearly 40 years with the PFA, I can’t believe how fast things move on the outside. I saw £5,000 a week contract once when I was young. Now £50,000 ones are everywhere! The world of football went and got itself in a big damn hurry. The people around the game even talk faster.

And louder.

The board got me a new job bagging groceries at Tesco. It’s hard work. I try to keep up, but my hands hurt most of the time. I don’t think the store manager likes me very much.

Sometimes after work, I go to the park and feed the birds. I keep thinking a player might show up who needs representation and say hello, but they never do. I hope wherever they are now, their interests are well served by their union officials.

19 Nov 1998: Frank Stapleton of Arsenal receives the winners trophy from Gordon Taylor of the PFA after the Masters League Football Challenge at the Manchester Evening News Arena in Manchester, England. Mandatory Credit: Ross Kinnaird /Allsport

At night, I have bad dreams. I see a player involved in an incident and I can’t immediately release a statement to the press on it. I wake up scared. Sometimes it takes me a while to remember that no one has to listen to me anymore.

Maybe I should launch a coup against the new board so they’d take me back. I could bang a few heads together at the FA while I’m at it, sort of like a bonus.

I don’t like being out of the PFA. I’m tired of not having people pay attention to me and whatever rubbish I talk all the time. I’ve decided it needs to change.

Dychey, give an old union rep a hint as to what to do now they’re out of the game?

Yours,

G Taylor

Dr Dychey says: Change is a traumatic experience, especially for someone who’s been ensconced in their position for so long – I think Morgan Freeman’s voice hadn’t broken back when you took over the PFA.

Also, it’s not necessarily such a bad thing that you’re out-of-office now – the world, not just football, has changed and maybe you weren’t keeping up with it.

Indeed, some might say that Andy Dufresne would’ve never made it out of Shawshank’s sewerage system if you’d be the warden – a fair few of your statements would’ve clogged up those pipes.

But there’s plenty of beaches for you to rock back on and enjoy your retirement – you might even get to watch a few other movies while you’re at it. The players should all be just fine without you.

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