Paul Dummett celebrates after scoring the third goal for Newcastle United during the Barclays Premier League football match against Manchester United at St James’ Park.
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Manchester United travel to Newcastle tonight hoping to make it back to back wins in the Premier League for the first time since November.
United led twice in the game and were 2-0 up before half time.
Van Gaal could not hide his disgust at that error and might have been further incensed after 63 minutes when Wijnaldum played Jack Colback into a shooting position, only for the midfielder to tumble far too easily under contact from Fellaini.
“There were big possibilities and when you lose two points, that’s very, very sad”.
Louis van Gaal: “We have won two matches in a row out of a bad period. We have to keep trying to get that balance right and keep creating chances, scoring goals and keeping them out”.
Van Gaal’s United found themselves outclassed for much of the opening nine minutes, unable to steal the ball from a confident home side, but scored from effectively their first attack in contentious circumstances. They are very hard to score against letting in only 17 in 20 matches, but are not doing well in front of goal, only managing to score in six of their last ten league matches.
First of all Newcastle pulled level when Georginio Wijnaldum and Aleksandar Mitrovic cancelled out the visitors’ two-goal lead secured by Rooney and Jesse Lingard’s goals. I have said that also to my players. You can clearly see he is pushing the head of Smalling to the ground. Then they are heavyweight champions and you can judge who is the champion.
“Tuesday against Newcastle will be tough; it is always tough there but we started the New Year well so we have to continue that”, Fellaini said, according to Man UTD. He has a lot of fight and that will be a benefit to us because this is another stepping stone for him (to get in the England squad).
McClaren believed that both teams had answered their critics-United for their supposed lack of adventure and his own side for their alleged lack of fighting spirit.
“Questionable attitude and character from our players?”
Steve McClaren is also close to completing his second signing of January, welcoming Jonjo Shelvey from Swansea City, who is expected to complete his move later this afternoon.
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McClaren said: “The crowd responded magnificently and we wanted to show everyone what we are about”. Giggs is now assistant to Van Gaal and has seen Lingard come up through the system while helping him maintain his positive attitude during loan spells at Derby and Brighton. “It must have been a great game for the neutral – it was a heart attack for the coaches”.
