He said: “The fans have the right to say that, but other than Arsenal [where United lost 3-0 on October 4], it’s the first time we have not been the better team”. Football is not creating chances. Van Gaal later revealed that he had a word with the former Athletic Bilbao star, but failed to get a response as to why he missed the opportunity to score.
Advertisement
“Of course I am concerned (about the lack of goals), but today when you are not creating so many chances I can not complain”, he said.
“Palace showed a lot of aggression”, van Gaal told reporters.
“Then after 15 minutes we came into the match and played our positional match”.
“He had problems in the months of November and December, so I did it. I sent him on holidays”.
“A draw in the last match was a good result as Manchester United is a very strong team with good players and it was hard to play against them”.
Alan Shearer has urged Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal to drop Wayne Rooney – for the striker’s sake.
United produced another predictable performance as they went a third fixture without scoring – their run includes a Capital One Cup defeat on penalties by Middlesbrough that went to extra-time – when they drew 0-0 in the Premier League at Crystal Palace. United of old were known for their fast transition of play, the use of pacy wingers and attacking teams relentlessly.
But he did not rule out resting him at a few stage “when we think it is better”.
“You can discuss everything about the scoring of Wayne Rooney but you can also discuss why other clubs are not scoring”.
“It is not a question that he does not play well because I think he was one of my better players on Wednesday [against Middlesbrough]”. It is not a big issue for me because even when I was a very young trainer-coach I did it with Jari Litmanen (at Ajax).
“Maybe in the second half of the first half we controlled the game, but in the second half we didn’t control the game so you can not talk of balance in the team”. We have a game every three days so I have to speak more.
Advertisement
Much has been said about the Dutch tactician’s system and the way he has changed how United play, as he was forced to respond to criticism from United legend Paul Scholes this week about the topic, as reported by the BBC.
