Louis van Gaal's match notes during the 1-1 draw with Stoke City revealed

Louis van Gaal’s notes during the game against Stoke City were captured on camera

Pictures from Stoke City’s 1-1 draw with Manchester United have been released, some of which were very interesting, in that the photographer chose to focus on United manager Louis van Gaal’s notes he took down during the game. It is a common practise of Van Gaal’s to take notes during games, and for the first time, fans from all over the world were able to get a closer glimpse of the same.

In the Stoke game, United were poor, which Van Gaal accepted in the interview after the match. Some of the points he scribbled down during the game were “stupid free kick, short pass, secondary ball and ball line.”

The one point which has attracted the most attention so far has been the one where he wrote “stupid free kick”. There are many assumptions regarding this, but what it suggests is that the manager felt his team had given away a 'stupid free-kick'. There is also a chance that he had noted that a free kick had wasted by his players.

If this was the latter, it is speculated that the note talks about either Juan Mata, Wayne Rooney or Ashley Young as these three were the players who took the set-pieces. There are three more points visible in his notepad which are usual points noted by any manager. But what truly got everyone talking was the one where he wrote “stupid free kick”.

Here are some more angles of the picture of Van Gaal’s notes:

A zoomed-in photograph of the notes

Picture from another angle of Louis van Gaal’s notes