LOUIS van Gaal’s future shouldn’t hang on Manchester United’s final two games of the season. It’s simply not logical to conclude that a win today against Bournemouth, coupled with a Manchester City slip-up at Swansea (the minimum requirement for a Champ-ions League finish) or, failing that, winning the FA Cup on Saturday against Crystal Palace, would turn the Dutchman into somebody worth keeping around.

And yet plenty seem to have fallen into this rather simple school of thought, perhaps owing to the inscrutability surrounding Ed Woodward and Old Trafford right now. There are plenty of reasons to think Jose Mourinho will be the next Manchester United manager. He’s available, he’s probably better than Van Gaal at delivering short-term success (and that’s important because, unless things go their way at Wembley, this will be the club’s longest streak without silverware since the start of the Sir Alex Ferguson era), and Mourinho hinted at it himself when he said he would be in a job come July.

But then there are plenty of other reasons that make you think Van Gaal will stay. Mourinho divides opinion; if they were going to bring him in, there was no reason to wait this long; and Van Gaal himself has said he expects to be back.

Then there’s United’s conference call with shareholders last week. In addition to confirming their ever- rising revenues, they said they expected transfer spending to be significantly lower in coming years. And that’s not really how Mourinho likes to be welcomed.

It’s not easy to perform with such an elephant in the room. That applies to the players pursuing fourth place, but also to the club itself, charged with strengthening the side for next season without knowing who the manager will be.

Woodward has asked the fans to have faith. They have had plenty thus far, with little to show for it. But at the very least, as the cliche goes, Saturday at Wembley will still be a “great day out”.

ONLY Seville have won more Uefa Cups (or its successor, the Europa League) than Liverpool. The Spaniards have four, the Merseysiders three. And neither has ever lost a final in this competition.

Something has got to give when they meet in Basel on Wednesday. And history will be made, though perhaps not of the kind fans will necessarily boast about: it’s tough to imagine Liverpool fans singing “we won it four times!” or Sevilla supporters talking “three-peat”.

A better vantage point may be taking a step back, looking at these clubs from a distance and asking what a Europa League victory brings. Sevilla won it in 2013-14, Unai Emery’s first season at the helm. He took over in mid-season with the club in ninth place and ended it in fifth, in addition to delivering European silverware. His reward that summer was losing his best defender, Federico Fazio, his promising young left-back, Alberto Moreno (to Liverpool, no less) and his midfield general Ivan Rakitic.

Last season, they again finished fifth and, again, won the Europa League. This time, he lost his versatile two-way weapon Aleix Vidal and his top goalscorer, Carlos Bacca.

Talk about needing to rebuild on the fly, year after year.

Liverpool aren’t quite in the position where they can be ransacked every season, but they are not far off it either. Raheem Sterling left last summer and Luis Suarez the year before that. Polarisation at the top of European football – the rich getting richer, pretenders being put back in their place by better resourced rivals – is nothing new. But it’s still depressing. And you wonder whether either of these two sides will have their bones picked over by the super clubs this summer.

TWO Spanish managers were released from their jobs in the past week. And while many saw Roberto Martinez’s dismissal from Everton as inevitable – relationships had broken down with both players and fans, the team nose-dived down the table and there’s a new owner, Farhad Moshiri, in town – Watford’s decision to part ways with Quique Sanchez Flores seemed more of a head-scratcher.

After all, he has taken a newly-promoted side to mid-table, despite having never worked in England before. Surely he deserved to stay?

Not only is it misguided to factor merit into the equation – it’s not about who deserves the sack, it’s about whether you think someone else can do a better job – but in Watford’s case he simply didn’t fit the owners’ mission statement.

The Pozzo family, who also own Udinese in Serie A and Granada in La Liga, have a blueprint that has served them well for the past two decades. They spend a fortune on scouting young talent, usually off the beaten path, they develop it and then sell at a profit. This type of player trading has allowed them not just to stay afloat, but to positively thrive against bigger, wealthier opponents.

Quique excelled in the first part of the season, but Watford have won just seven points from their last 11 games. More of a concern was the fact the Spaniard seemed to stick with his veteran XI, rather than push the youngsters Watford had acquired. Guys who were supposed to be showcased, like Mamadou Oulare (who was given a total of seven minutes of Premier League action this year) and Steven Berghuis (yet to start a league game for the club) couldn’t get on the pitch, while veterans like Troy Deeney, Jose Jurado and Ben Watson were run into the ground.

In a different context, Quique’s approach may have worked just fine. But not here. Not when it didn’t mesh with the owners’ grand strategy. And, ultimately, that’s one of the problems with managers. They sometimes favour their own interests – which are invariably short- term – over the long-term plan of the club.