A hectic holiday program, including four games in 15 days, has taken its toll on the squad and Van Gaal fears that many of his over-stretched players risk injury or burnout.
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Speaking after the game, van Gaal said: “We can improve but how many chances have Sheffield United created?”
“The players looked bored themselves”, Scholes said. There’s no spirit, there’s nobody having a go at each other, there’s no smiling, there’s no entertainment.
‘It wasn’t a great performance, will he (Van Gaal) be happy with it? I think he probably will be. “Every time I come to Old Trafford it’s negative football, I would be depressed if I was part of that performance”. You look at the manager and he looks bored as well.
“To just to go through the motions like they did, people need digging out sometimes, it just seems to be accepted”. “I don’t think I have to respond to that kind of remark”. But he didn’t play so many 90-minute matches in one season and he has to show his fitness in the second team.
“I can understand (why) the manager of Sheffield United choose this kind of tactics, but they didn’t have any chances, we have kept another clean sheet and we deserved to win”, the United manager said.
He added that pressure could have an influence but when they were playing for Manchester United, then had to cope up with that.
It will be interesting to see if Van Gaal sees this as an opportunity to let his players off the leash so to speak, against opposition they are expected to beat comfortably.
“Juan Mata gets stuck on the right hand side, [he’s got] no pace to play there”.
“It was a good effort, it’s just a shame we couldn’t force the replay”.
Rooney’s first goal since the win over Everton at Goodison Park coincided in United’s first Premier League since beating Watford 2-1 in November – a run of six matches without a victory.
He has featured in two FA Cup finals while at Manchester United but lost both of them against Arsenal and Chelsea in 2005 and 2007 respectively.
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“It’s a shame. There were three results on offer and we wanted two of them”.
