Glenn Moore: Which comes first, the system or the players? And can Van Gaal change things in months when it has taken Mourinho a full year?

The weekend dossier

Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal with Angel Di Maria, his most expensive signing (GETTY IMAGES)

It is the eternal conundrum for coaches, from grassroots to the World Cup finals. Do you pick a formation and fit the players into it, or design a formation based on the players?

On Sunday, after a summer recruitment drive approaching £150m, and a turnover of 26 players, Louis van Gaal will pursue one of the great tactical shifts of the Premier League era.

Under Sir Alex Ferguson, Manchester United were wedded to 4-4-2 and its variants, 4-4-1-1 and 4-2-3-1. It brought a quarter-century of success and David Moyes used the same formations. Enter Van Gaal, a coach who has achieved huge success across Europe and has the self-belief to match. Van Gaal was not afraid to go against tradition when coaching the Dutch team during the World Cup and has been equally single-minded at Old Trafford. He arrived determined to play a back three and when he discovered the squad he inherited could not make it work, his response has been to buy players he believes can.

Now the Dutchman is able to deploy players he has personally chosen, such as Marcos Rojo and Daley Blind, who have experience playing in a three at the highest level, and the versatile Angel Di Maria. Now we will see if this fundamental switch can succeed.

Ironically, Van Gaal’s new team gets its first outing at home to Queen’s Park Rangers, another side which has attempted to move to a back three this season and done so with a former United defender, Rio Ferdinand, as the foundation. Rangers, like United, have found the transition difficult. Unlike United they have not been able to spend vast sums to smooth the way and it will be interesting to see which formation manager Harry Redknapp deploys.

The best coaches are flexible. Roberto Martinez utilised a back three at Wigan Athletic and it was clear, when he took Antolín Alcaraz with him to Goodison Park, that he intended to do the same at Everton. Seamus Coleman and Leighton Baines appear, after all, to be well-suited to playing wing-back. Then Alcaraz was injured and, while he recuperated, Coleman, Baines, Phil Jagielka and Sylvain Distin showed what a good back four they can be. Martinez decided to stick with what he had, adapting by using Gareth Barry so deep in midfield he was almost an advanced centre-back.

Some coaches do not have a choice. At Real Madrid, the richest club of them all, Carlo Ancelotti must devise a way to fit in whichever new superstars president Florentino Perez has bought. The players may be better but he is like any manager arriving after the transfer window has closed, forced to work with what he has got. He makes it look easy but it is not. Square pegs in round holes rarely work, even good ones. Look at the problems Spain are having accommodating Diego Costa in a team set up to play with a different kind of forward (or with no forward at all).

Neil Warnock took over at Crystal Palace as the window was edging shut. He was able to bring in a couple of the hard-working channel-running strikers he favours in Kevin Doyle and Andy Johnson, and midfielder James McArthur, but must otherwise work with Tony Pulis’s squad. But Warnock is an old hand at this. At Notts County he realised three of his best players were central defenders, so he played all three with Don O’Riordan as sweeper. At QPR he figured Adel Taarabt’s goal-making and taking would get the club promoted, so he designed the team around him. It worked, though building around an individual is a risk, as was highlighted at West Ham last season when Andy Carroll was injured.

The need to find a system which suits the players applies most in international football. Roy Hodgson is expected to create a team which plays with coherence, but has a couple of training sessions a month in which to do it. Moreover, unlike Van Gaal, if he is short of a player in a certain position he cannot buy a replacement. So team selection involves compromises.

Hodgson has looked at the attacking potential of players such as Raheem Sterling, Daniel Sturridge, Theo Walcott and Danny Welbeck, added the need to include Wayne Rooney – because he deserves a place, not because he is captain, or because he is famous – and devised a gameplan based on swift counter-attacking.

Jack Wilshere lacks that searing pace, but he is a gifted, committed creator whom Hodgson wants to use. Meanwhile there is no outstanding English holding midfielder available to the manager (the best candidates are Lee Cattermole and Tom Huddlestone). Thus the decision to play Wilshere there in Basel this week. Wilshere is unaccustomed to the role, which showed at times in his positioning, but being a bright, talented player who is young and willing to learn, he can grow into it.

Hodgson used to be more dogmatic. He pioneered 4-4-2 in Sweden, but with experience comes the ability to adapt. Which brings us back to Van Gaal. Why does he want to play three at the back? Because his best players are attacking ones, he wants to get them into the team, but Rooney, Robin van Persie, Juan Mata and, now, Radamel Falcao, are all best in central areas. He could play twin strikers and a diamond midfield, with Rooney or Mata at the apex, but the team would then be narrow going forward. Wing-backs in a 3-4-1-2 provide width.

There is a third way. Swansea City were in League One when they adopted a passing philosophy within a team shape that stressed depth and width. They hired a manager who fitted their playing philosophy, which meant the squad did not require an expensive squad re-fit every time the manager changed – which he has, frequently.

Swansea’s opponents on Saturday, Chelsea, have had such a refit (albeit largely funded by the David Luiz windfall). Jose Mourinho is a coach who knows his own mind and has a track record to back it up. Having inherited an unbalanced squad – the result of Chelsea burning through seven managers in six years since his first spell – he has bought Costa, Nemanja Matic, Willian and Cesc Fabregas to plug the gaps in his preferred formation. Mourinho has a plan and he finds players who fit into it. The personnel are different but Mourinho’s Chelsea Mark II now look much like the original and could be as successful. It has, though, taken him a year and three transfer windows to get the team he wants. It is likely to take Van Gaal at least as long.