Louis van Gaal hailed Manchester United’s “unbelievable” spirit after they beat Everton 2-1 to reach the FA Cup final – before admitting his continued uncertainty about his chances of still being with the club next season. After United’s keeper David de Gea denied Romelu Lukaku’s penalty attempt, he was stumped later when defender Chris Smalling deflected a Gerard Deulofeu shot into his own goal.
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“I don’t think [the FA Cup semi-final win] should mask what we have witnessed over the last 18 months under LVG, which has been pretty poor”.
United played their best football past year in a 4-3-3 formation, and there is no surprise that they are doing that again at the end of this season.
He said: “When you see the joy in the eyes of the players, it’s fantastic to see, but also for the fans”.
Van Gaal has been commended for bringing youth into the first team at Old Trafford, but Custis says those decisions were forced because of injuries to the squad. The fact the game entertained us was as shocking as Wayne Rooney’s box office performance, an end-to-end encounter had everything a neutral could want, but do we know anything more about these players? I think the referee… we didn’t have any fouls in our benefit.
But there remains plenty of competition for the player as a separate report in L’Equipe claims that Borussia Dortmund, Inter Milan and Everton have all also made enquiries.
FA Cup semi-finals are seldom the most spectacular of footballing occasions, as nerves cripple creative freedom and managers drop defensive blocks deeper and deeper, but this game between two of the top flight’s stalwarts was a cracker.
Luckily for Everton though, they do get some good news regarding the health of a couple of their footballers. “We should have finished it much earlier and scored much more goals”.
“I think the penalty was OK, I don’t argue with that”.
Lukaku stepped up but saw his spot-kick well saved by De Gea, who then easily held a Barkley free-kick moments later.
If delivering United their first FA Cup triumph in 12 years is not enough to save Van Gaal’s job, then he has little other hope to cling on to as the Mourinho rumours continue to gather pace.
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“Things just haven’t been going for us this season”, he said.
