The win means United are now unbeaten in eight in all competitions. Both of United’s goals against Watford came from crosses in a few way, with Depay’s goal from a particularly impressive centre from Herrera.
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There was a solemn moment before the game when the French national anthem was played as a mark of respect following last week’s attacks in Paris, as it will be at matches throughout England this weekend. And if it turns out like that at the end of the season, United will have David De Gea to thank.
Juan Mata, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Jesse Lingard all start as well, while youngsters Sean Goss and Marcus Rashford making the bench.
United had been accused of being boring to watch in their previous 4-2-3-1 system, although Van Gaal did point out that his side kept possession better in that formation.
He broke the deadlock when he connected perfectly with an Ander Herrera cross from the right and volleyed past Heurelho Gomes with his left foot. Liverpool coped well with what City threw at them in the second half, and they added further salt to the home side’s wound as Martin Skrtel fired home a fourth with nine minutes to go after the ball had bounced loose from an uncleared corner. But it was United which first went close, with Gomes turning away Lingard’s early effort.
It nearly proved costly as three minutes from time Marcos Rojo swiped through the back of Ighalo and referee Bobby Madley pointed to the spot.
Manchester United showed enough belief in the end to salvage a 2-1 victory at Vicarage Road against Watford in the English Premier League encounter on Saturday. With Fellaini still sidelined by a calf problem, Van Gaal admits he has a “big problem” selecting an attack for Saturday. “It’s been a long time coming for him, and he’s deserved it”.
“In football you always have 90-93 minutes”, Schweinsteiger told BT Sport. “It was a little bit hard, but I’m fine”.
“He scored it very well but it’s Deeney – what happened is possible because he’s fighting everywhere on the pitch, so he tried to remove the ball from the line of our goal”. We didn’t give away many chances and also the penalty, but I expect better than today of our positional game. “It was painful”, Quique Sanchez Flores said.
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“Of course we are fighting for the first position in the Premier League”, he said. Because of that I didn’t buy a second player for left-back because I thought he would play more or less every game.
