Fifth-place United trail Manchester City and Arsenal by four points ahead of their league game against potential FA Cup final opponents Crystal Palace at Old Trafford on Wednesday. “When you are playing with pressure it just shows in your game, and we’ve been playing with so much pressure recently”.
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Manchester United’s Matteo Darmian celebrates scoring his side’s second goal of the game during the Barclays Premier League match at Old Trafford, Manchester. They are now second on the league table, five points behind leaders Leicester City and are in with a genuine chance of winning their first top division title since 1961.
Manchester United took the early lead through a Damian Delaney own goal, but United never let up and defeated Crystal Palace 2-0.
Today’s Sun – in a story since picked up by the Mirror – are reporting that manager Louis van Gaal has challenged the player to prove that he is good enough to play for the club, and that he warrants a starting place in the first eleven.
“They have four points more than us”, Van Gaal said.
United remained dominant but Speroni continued to thwart their chase for a second goal.
Juan Mata for Manchester United has scored against Palace in their last 2 fixtures (besides this season’s). “It’s too important to rotate because rotation or freshness for semi, no, we have to win” added the Dutchman.
“No, You have the player, you have the club and you have the club where he wants to go or not (he replied to whether he got who he wanted in the summer)”. But there wouldn’t have been many United fans inside Old Trafford last night who thought that the Reds were wrong to sell the England winger. “That stage when I was at Man United has gone now and I’m a Crystal Palace player”. They are also in the semi-final and maybe they are thinking about that game.
Striker Rooney has only just returned from a two-month injury lay-off, coming on as a sub late in the FA Cup replay win at West Ham and managing an hour from the start against Villa three days later.
Palace then broke away following Martial’s chance but Lee’s final pass was delayed when Adebayor would have been through on goal – much to the annoyance of the Togolese forward.
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Back on 31 October, Crystal Palace held United to a frustrating 0-0 draw and that was the United’s third consecutive goalless match in all competitions.
