2469B78900000578-0-image-a-78_1420391511779Although the season has seen a marked improvement in league performance, there’s no doubt that it’s been a long way from a perfect season. We ought to have challenged for the title and didn’t. We ought to have finished ahead of Arsenal and didn’t. We ought to have seen the best of players like Angel di Maria, Radamel Falcao, Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie, and we didn’t.

It’s been a matter of considerable debate how much of this blame can be laid at Van Gaal’s doorstep. Aside from the fact they’re both Dutch and one majestic World Cup header, there wasn’t really any other reason to suspect he’d get the best out a now clearly past-it Van Persie. Di Maria looked like he’d rather be anywhere else, and Falcao… well, Falcao. Let’s just say that you could’ve taken a random bloke off a fives pitch in England and he’d probably have got about as many goals playing up front for United.

There were, however, two big success stories in players that vastly improved. Marouane Fellaini had become a running joke last season, but for decent spells of this one he scored and created goals while keeping up his hard-man act. Indeed, for a while, he was United’s most dangerous player, although that may say more about us than him. If Marouane Fellaini is your best creative outlet, then you don’t have any creative outlets. It also led to the memorable scene of Sam Allardyce complaining about United’s long-ball in-the-mixer tactics, which would be a bit like Fellaini asking someone sat in front of him in the cinema if he wouldn’t mind switching seats because he couldn’t see.

The other was Ashley Young, who bizarrely started the season as seemingly our first-choice left-back as Van Gaal continued to take the notion of giving everybody a clean slate to ridiculous lengths, apparently trying every player in every possible position just to see what’d happen. When restored to the wing, however, he quickly proved a vital outlet and a valuable squad member.

But player of the year? Ashley Young? No, I don’t think so. The real meat of United’s successes this season have come from the Spanish contingent, and if we’re discussing the player of the year, we should look to them, and see how we’re doing.

First, another much-improved player, Juan Mata. Mata is probably the most well-liked player at United, but most of that seems to be purely because he’s a lovely man who writes blogs about going to art galleries in Manchester that end with “hugs.” Last year he was a severe disappointment, anonymous in big games, and only really good for a nice finish when you were 3-0 up against Norwich City.

This year, he’s scored some massive goals in massive games, and was at his most influential in United’s winning streak that eventually won fourth place and showed that Van Gaal’s side could, mano-a-mano, match anyone. He’s still not been quite as consistent as we’d like, but he’s managed to be very good while operating from the wing to accommodate others, and is therefore more than worthy of inclusion in such a list. As it stands though, he must have to settle for third place.

Which leaves us Ander Herrera and David de Gea. First, the obvious choice, the goalkeeper. De Gea is United’s only player who fits the following two criteria: That he is a world-class player who plays like one over the course of the season. His shot-stopping abilities are ludicrous, and the earlier terrors at dealing with crosses are now completely exorcised. He has become a serious contender for the best in the world, so obviously that means he’s probably off to Real Madrid.

So, an open and shut case? Not quite. He might be our only world-class player, but this isn’t like it was when we had Cristiano Ronaldo, where every opposition gameplan would revolve around stopping him so all our other players would be free and then he’d score a hat-trick anyway. No goalkeeper can truly strike fear into the opposition, or turn around a losing game. Ander Herrera, however, can.

Van Gaal has made many mistakes this season – his insistence on playing people out of position, his utterly baffling substitutions – but by far the biggest and most obvious was his initial refusal to play Herrera. It made no sense, everybody could see it, and when he did finally relent the results were obvious and immediate. For next season, you’d be torn between being glad he’s proven his ability to rectify his mistakes, and worrying that he’s going to do the same with someone else.

But as for the man himself, it’s been an exceptional debut season. United’s midfield has lacked pace, tenacity, drive, creativity and goals for a long, long time, and Herrera has brought them all. He’s a remarkably complete midfielder, someone who could easily play in a two or a three, he’s excellent at winning the ball high up the pitch and pressing, and he can score goals from very little while at the same time being the biggest contributor to the team that there will be more than very little to score from. For a first season in the Premier League, he’s been nothing short of outstanding.

That’s why he should be the pick for player of the year. De Gea’s had his time in the spotlight, but even for all his miraculous saves, he’s probably not been worth as many points as Herrera has. He may not be feared like Ronaldo, but at the moment, if any player was injured, it would be him who would cost us the most. Hopefully another signing like him will change that for next season, but he deserves plenty of rewards and platitudes for this. We could hardly have asked for more.