Goals from Stoke forwards Bojan Krkic and Marko Arnautovic punished United for a awful start at a blustery Britannia Stadium and although the visitors improved in the second half they could not fix the damage.
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The Potters created a number of opportunities and could have even won by more, but went on to inflict United’s fourth straight defeat in all competitions anyway.
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The Red Devils will host Chelsea at Old Trafford on Monday, and it remains to be seen whether Van Gaal manages to cling on to his job until the Premier League champions arrive in Manchester.
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Ex-Manchester United and England striker Andrew Cole is another backing Giggs, saying of his 1999 treble-winning team-mate in a column for Yahoo Sports: “I liked the idea of my old team-mate Ryan Giggs replacing Van Gaal. People are looking at me and I have to deal with that, but much more important is that the players have to deal with that because they have to perform”.
With Manchester United already eliminated from the Champions League and in the midst of a three-game losing streak in the Premier League and four-game losing skid overall, De Gaal could be fired in the coming hours, English media reported.
“We didn’t play our football because of the pressure and we would not cope with the circumstances either as a group or individual players”.
It appeared that Van Gaal himself may have asked for this game and the next to turn things round, although he was left admitting that his team “didn’t dare to play our football”.
“I do my utmost to find solutions to cope with the pressure, but at the end my players have to do that by themselves, and I help them”.
“[The decision on my future] is another situation, we have lost the fourth game so you have to wait and see”.
To say Manchester United have struggled in their second season under Louis van Gaal would be an understatement.
“I am always faithful but the circumstances are hard”, he noted of his failed game plan.
For the first time under the Dutchman, captain Wayne Rooney dropped to the bench for a league match in which he was available.
Asked about the speculation over his future, Van Gaal added: “I don’t think that is interesting what they [the headlines] do to me”.
“Second half was different because you expect a reaction and that’s what we got from Unmited and they were a bit more dynamic”.
“I thought we produced a similar first-half performance here that we showed against Manchester City, so we’re delighted that we were able to do it again”.
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“On another day we could have scored another goal or two so that is the only slight disappointment from today”.
