Louis van Gaal is confident that his Manchester United can qualify for the next stage of the Champions League despite the dour 0-0 draw with PSV Eindhoven on Wednesday night. One more boring performance and we risk putting our fans to sleep for good. “No, we’re not. I think we need to score more goals as a team and, as I said before, in the first-half, if we get one goal, it’s a completely different game”.
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Anthony Martial showed signs of rustiness and wasted a glorious chance just before the half-time break and Jesse Lingard spurned United’s best opportunity of the night by belting over the crossbar in the 72nd minute. In the first half it was average but in the second, despite my changes [bringing on Ashley Young, Marouane Fellaini and Juan Mata] it did not improve. “I thought that with this line-up we had the best chance to win and you shall not know if with Mata in the beginning it would be different”.
“We have won also our home match against Wolfsburg so why we can’t win in Wolfsburg?”.
Wednesday’s home stalemate against PSV, in a game where victory would have secured their passage to the round of 16, left the three-time victors facing an uphill task.
Pröpper also sang the praises of his fellow midfielder Andrés Guardado, who produced a man-of-the-match display, covering more distance and making more passes than any other PSV player. Anything less and a PSV win in their final group game means it’s the Europa League for LVG and his boys.
Depay scored United’s goal in the 2-1 defeat at PSV in their opening Group B game in September, when defender Luke Shaw suffered a badly broken leg. Shaw has been given four days off this week rather than having to watch PSV again.
Bastian Schweinsteiger registered the first effort of the game, but his 25-yard shot was easily dealt with by Jeroen Zoet.
“We are still second and in a qualifying position and we have to do it in Wolfsburg”.
“But we felt as the game went on and they couldn’t score a goal, they were not so dominant anymore”.
Rooney said United must be more clinical and can not keep claiming they are a work in progress under Van Gaal.
United captain Wayne Rooney believed United were not ruthless enough.
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Scholes went further, agreeing United are “a million miles away” from the quality of Barcelona and Bayern Munich, adding: ‘I think Van Gaal’s set up his team to be very good defensively because he knows, “I haven’t got the quality up front”.
