The 64-year-old observed his team slip five points behind fourth-placed Tottenham and 10 points adrift of leaders Leicester thanks to Charlie Austin’s 87th-minute victor on his Saints debut.
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Gill formed a formidable partnership with ex-United boss Sir Alex Ferguson which translated into a series of Premier League successes as well as one Champions League triumph in 2008.
“We hoped results would be better”, he explained.
He added: “I don’t want to talk about quality [of football] – but I’m not going to sit here and say it’s that attractive”. I don’t know, but it was a poor performance, of course, because football is not only defending but creating chances and we didn’t create any chance.
This coupled with the fact that Van Gaal is heading back to Netherlands after the demoralizing loss, ostensibly to be there for his daughters birthday, has lead to speculation that this could be curtains for Van Gaal’s career at Manchester United. I’m sure we want to do that.
They’re loving United under Van Gaal.
While Gill would not be drawn on Van Gaal’s long-term future, he did admit United’s fifth place is not good enough.
“How damning that he was condemned to defeat by Southampton’s striking substitute, Charlie Austin, a newcomer flourishing at Old Trafford”.
Van Gaal will still think he can achieve things this season, despite all the struggles, and sacking the manager now would be effectively writing the season off.
The United fans have largely backed Van Gaal during matches, but the Dutchman was heckled like never before as he walked down the tunnel following Saturday’s damaging defeat.
“That I didn’t see today”.
The home faithful did not hold back displeasure as their side failed to score before halftime for an 11th consecutive home game, and an initial upsurge in urgency at the break, sparked by the introduction of Juan Mata, failed to yield anything more menacing than a couple of penalty-box skirmishes.
“This provided a microcosm of the problems under Van Gaal”.
Relegation-battlers Sunderland took what could yet prove a valuable point with a 1-1 draw against Bournemouth at the Stadium of Light.
With every bad result, and there have been quite a few this season, the pressure cranks up a notch and we see all the headlines about Van Gaal facing the sack or resigning from his post. I can not deny that, I saw the match.
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Valdes has made a decision to leave United in a bid to get regular first-team football before Vicente Del Bosque picks his squad for Spain’s defence of their European Championship title.
