We could do a lot worse as a stop-gap for two or three years until someone like Klopp or Pep is available.

People forget his vital role at Bayern a few years back which ended in tears, but...

Van Gaal (and Andries Jonker our new youth director) were the ones that identified a new generation of talent in the youth set-up at Bayern and insisted that they should be immediately promoted to the first-team squad.

That put a lot of noses out of joint among the established names, but they worked intensively with these select few youth names and developed them into the players they are today - names like Müller, Kroos, Badstuber, Alaba etc.

They all owe a debt to Van Gaal and Jonker who brought them through while winning the Double, restucturing the squad by weeding out the dead wood and setting things up nicely for Heynckes and then Pep.