Mitchell van der Gaag's former charges have been singing his praises following the Dutchman's move to Manchester United this summer.
Van der Gaag followed his compatriot Erik ten Hag to Old Trafford in the summer after a year working as his number two at Ajax. The 51-year-old former centre-half is not a name that may have been instantly recognisable to United fans upon his appointment, but according to players he previously coached he has impressive tactical flexibility and methodology.
Prior to joining Ten Hag and fellow assistant coach Steve McClaren at United, Van der Gaag had enjoyed an extensive period as a head coach both in his native Holland as well as stints in Portugal and Cyprus.
Speaking to The Athletic, Van der Gaag's former captain at Excelsior Ryan Koolwijk offered an insight into his methods.
Read more: Two United players could debut against Sheriff
He said: "If you are a player, and I had a lot of coaches, sometimes you have to do a 40-metre sprint and then wait 30 seconds before you do another sprint. But Mitchell would make you sprint 40 metres and then after that, you needed to shoot. That way we weren’t thinking about all the running we were doing, we thought about shooting. What I liked about his training was that everything was with the ball. Everything that he got us to do was with a plan. Tactically, he is a very good coach."
Matt Jones, who played under Van der Gaag at Portuguese side Belenses, concurred. He said: "It was very Dutch in terms of playing style. Everything was possession-based and played on the ground through the midfield.
“It was about transitions and once you’d broken the press about how quickly you can go forward. He wanted us to play positive, attacking football. He let players play and he allowed for fluidity in positions.
“Teams couldn’t deal with our movement off the ball and they couldn’t deal with our speed of play once we’d broken through midfield. It wasn’t like Pep (Guardiola) reinventing football, but we could do it so consistently on any surface and in any game. He made opponents constantly change to us.”
READ NEXT:
