Fans: Jury still out on van Gaal

Cape Town - Manchester United continue to struggle in the English Premiership with Sport24 readers predicting much of the same going forward for the Old Trafford club. 

Read: Was Moyes really that bad?

Manchester United stuttered to only their second win of the English Premiership season against West Ham and will now miss Wayne Rooney for the next three games after their captain saw red following a shocking challenge on Stewart Downing.

The Old Trafford club have done some rather questionable business in the transfer market, with van Gaal failing to replace the departed centre-back pair of Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic. The Dutch coach has instead lured attacking duo Angel Di Maria and Radamel Falcao to the "Theatre of Dreams".

The defensive frailties at United have been exposed in sensational fashion this season and with no better example than when Leicester City scored five goals against the Red Devils.

With the Manchester giants struggling to recover in the post-Moyes era, the question had to be asked: Is Louis van Gaal the man to restore the glory days at Manchester United?

Over 3700 Sport24 readers responded and the news, at least in the short term, is not good for the Manchester United faithful.

33% of the those that voted opted for the cautious choice of "It's too soon to tell"  while 30% of those who participated in the poll, and probably all die-hard United fans, are backing van Gaal to turn around the club's fortunes and voted in favour of "Yes, he is proven his quality as a manager".

9% of the voters chose to jump ship from pro-LVG to rather less pro-LVG when they clicked on the "I thought so but now I'm not convinced" option.

Liverpool fans  or should it rather read, those who think Manchester United are destined for (more) failure, made up 5% of the votes cast.  "No, United are doomed under LVG" was the option voted for by this particularly pessimistic bunch.

"Definitely not! Bring back Fergie!" was voted for by 7% of the readers while those who simply couldn't care about United and their struggles made up the remaining 16% of the votes.

Manchester United, who find themselves in seventh position on the English Premiership log, face the tough task of hosting Everton on Sunday, October 5 at 13:00.