After the match, Van Gaal told the club’s website he was delighted with the quality of his side’s two goals in Saturday’s victory over Swansea City.
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Manchester United have won three of the last four Premier League games between the two teams at Old Trafford, but Swansea have won on four of their last visits to Old Trafford in all competitions, all by a 2-1 scoreline.
Speculation surrounding the Dutchman’s future is unlikely to go away just yet, but he praised his players following the win, and claimed it could be a “starting point” for his side.
“You have to score with the chances you create and we had big chances to score”. He wants to play, but I can imagine that he can’t always play. Nearly as worrying for United is that the team has scored only one goal in its last four home games.
“The players want to win because we didn’t win several matches in a row”.
“So that’s football. That’s a season”.
It was clear when they had to win in Wolfsburg last month and got taken apart at the back in a 3-2 defeat, and it was clear for periods in the second half on Saturday when Swansea had them rocking.
United’s under-fire manager Van Gaal, however, was more focussed on the importance of a result that lifted United to fifth in the table after a dismal run in December.
But Van Gaal believes the Mexican is best example of how frustrated a striker can become if he is not playing, saying: “We could have kept all the strikers, but then there would have been a lot of strikers in the tribune [stand]”.
“It looked close. He reckons it was from the edge of the box when he headed it”, said Swansea caretaker manager Alan Curtis, who was disappointed to see his team leave with nothing. “That is important, as we know”.
“But I don’t think it is because I left him out recently at Stoke”.
Anthony Martial was the star of the show as he gave Swansea the runaround all afternoon.
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Both of United’s strikers Martial and Rooney scored past Lukasz Fabianski and Smalling says they both need to continue to do so. It was important to get the three points. Only it shall raise the confidence and lower the pressure because the players had a lot of pressure to do it in 90 minutes against an opponent that is not so easy. We have created pressure and chances. “It was a sublime finish from Wayne Rooney for his goal”.
