So where did it all go wrong? We lost very comprehensively, and we didn’t
lose to a particularly good side. Over the two legs, there were elements of bad
luck and individual errors, but on reflection I think some of the explanation
lies in the battle, psychological as well as tactical, that took place between
the two managers.

Van Gaal kicked things off before the first leg. Rather surprisingly, he had a
little dig at Roeder along the same lines as Redknapp had done before. He said
that, with the quality of our individual players, we ought to be doing better
– a clear hint that the manager was at fault. Roeder replied that Van Gaal
had probably been misquoted, but if he hadn’t been, he didn’t care.

I thought that the episode showed a lack of class on Van Gaal’s part.
Here’s a man with a brilliant track record as a manager, taking what seemed
an unnecessary pop at a man whose achievements are clearly more modest. In
normal circumstances, you’d say that Van Gaal might be rattled, but I wonder
now whether, as usual, he’d done his homework.

Despite his many breezy statements to the contrary, I think Roeder is very
sensitive to criticisms of his managerial record. He feels that he has been
unlucky – perhaps with some justification – and that he is at least the
equal of many managers who have been considered superior. I’m not talking
about the likes of Mourinho or Ferguson. I’m thinking more on the lines of
the likes of Hughes, Jewell, Moyes and Curbishley. I think Roeder is quite
touchy on this issue, and more than once has been unnecessarily chippy and
defensive in his attitude to his managerial rivals. What’s more, I think the
ever-thorough Van Gaal knew this, and tried to unsettle him.

Of course it all backfired in the first leg, and that would have hurt Van Gaal
deeply. He even said that Alkmaar had been the better side - a claim that said
more about his wounded pride than his real opinions about how the game had gone.
He’d been turned over by a manager who he’d previously tried to belittle,
and for a man of his standing in the game, that must have been hard to
swallow.

And so we come to the second leg. I don’t think there was a lot to criticise
in terms of Roeder’s initial team selection. It was the same as the first
leg, bar an enforced change at left back due to injury. Perhaps he could have
taken a bigger risk with Emre, but we’re not in a position to judge his
fitness. Also, personally, I much prefer to see Dyer up front instead of
Sibierski. However, there’s no denying that most managers would have stuck as
near as possible to the team that had done so well in the first game.

The whistle went and it was clear that it wasn’t working. Solano, who starts
off so many good moves at right back, was isolated and pressured into errors.
The passing and movement that had been so effective in the first leg had gone,
and we were reduced to launching the ball on to Sibierski’s head. He won many
aerial challenges, but as we all know that it’s getting to the knock down that
counts, not winning the header, and Alkmaar had no problem in mopping everything
up.

When the first goal went in, Van Gaal performed an extended and provocative
dance of delight right in front of our dugout. Again, it was a gesture that
lacked class, and he was clearly out to unsettle his rival. You couldn’t call
it a turning point, but I do wonder whether by this stage the accumulated
pressure of facing a hostile opponent of Van Gaal’s stature had got to
Roeder.

It became more and more obvious as the game wore on that change was needed. Yet
the changes when they came, were too late and were not, in my opinion, the right
ones. I’m inclined to think that Roeder’s judgement was affected by the
pressure that his opponent had brought to bear.

My general opinion of Roeder is that he’s done well in his time as manager,
under difficult circumstances. He gets criticised for poor selections and poor
tactics, but I think he’s been sound in these areas. He’s maintained faith
in his own judgement under considerable pressure at times, and he’s not been
afraid to take the unorthodox or the unpopular decision. The players appear to
have had faith in him and in what he asks of them.

But at Alkmaar, it was very different. Dyer became frustrated and started to
drift inside, trying to make something happen. You couldn’t blame him,
because we were not carrying any threat at all, but our shape was affected, and
problems almost inevitably arise when players take matters into their own hands.
Belatedly, Roeder gave Dyer the free attacking role in the centre that he
craves, but he failed to bite the bullet and take off Sibierski, and space
became very cramped.

For me, this was the most telling decision. Sibierski appeared to be doing his
job as target man well, and substituting him would have been very unpopular. If
we’d gone on to lose nonetheless, the criticism of Roeder would have been even
more vociferous. But the wider picture was that we needed to change tactics and
get the ball on the deck. This is where a manager really earns his corn – by
backing his judgement in situations where he knows that, if the decision fails,
he’s going to get hammered.

I think bringing on the creative Emre was a good move, but it shouldn’t have
been Duff who made way. We ended up in a messy 4-3-3 – a formation which is
not familiar to the team – and what’s more we didn’t have the right
players to make it work. All in all, it looked like a mess and what’s more
not really the sort of mess that the clear-thinking Roeder usually makes. For
what’s it’s worth, I think it should have been Emre for Butt or Parker, and
Milner for Sibierski.

The fact that we nearly got a goal in the last few minutes, despite the
shambolic organisation, says more about the opposition than our team. Theirs
was not the most difficult defence to breach, as both we and other European
teams had already found.

At the end, Van Gaal rubbed salt in Roeder’s wounds by saying that the key to
management was getting the players to believe in what the coach was asking them
to do. By the end, it was clear that our team were a rudderless ship who were
attempting to improvise their own solutions, and that Alkmaar were still
working to a plan. There’s no question that Van Gaal knows how to set a team
up well, and often in unorthodox and original ways, but in this case he’d
succeeded in out-psyching his opponent as well.

However, I don’t think we should be too hard on Roeder. Van Gaal has taken
what looks to me like a fairly ordinary side to second place in the Dutch
league. If Roeder failed to sort things out on the night, it looks like lots of
other managers have had similar difficulties. Van Gaal has been one of the
world’s top managers of the last 25 years, so defeat is no particular
disgrace. And like all successful men, he lacks nothing when it comes to
ruthlessness and doing whatever he can to secure an advantage.

It feels like the club is in shock, and the usual search for a scapegoat has
begun. Worryingly, it looks like Roeder has been tempted to join in. The
selection against Charlton, with Bramble and Huntington dropped and Sibierski
retained, seems like a stubborn assertion that his selection and tactics on
Thursday were right, and that he was let down by his defenders. He has always
been a man under pressure, but now he is starting to act like one. It is
important that he recovers some faith in himself and his players.

Of course that will take nerve, and I hope that Roeder has still got it. The
overall picture is that the team has improved under his leadership, and
coolness under pressure has been one of his biggest assets.

Here’s hoping.