Louis van Gaal hinted that he could vacate the Old Trafford hot seat after watching Stoke City swat aside his timid Manchester United team 2-0 in the Premier League on Saturday (December 26).
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Memphis Depay’s diving backward header allowed Bojan Krkic to put Stoke in front, and Marko Arnautovic powered in a second goal from outside the penalty area.
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This is what prompted Van Gaal’s demands for an apology from the media for their coverage of his predicament at last Wednesday’s short-lived press conference and, indeed, his peculiar and unprompted comments about quitting after the Stoke defeat. “We have lost the fourth game, so you have to wait and see”.
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“It is not always the club that has to fire or sack me”.
United have stopped short of a public vote of confidence in their manager, but Van Gaal, who has one more year left on his contract after this season, said it is not something that he would welcome, either.
“We didn’t play our football because of the pressure and we would not cope with the circumstances either as a group or individual players”. That is the problem now. “Sometimes I do it by myself”.
The United manager admitted it would be hard to lift his players for Monday’s home game against Chelsea – a match he desperately needs to win. I feel the support of my players and my board.
The Dutchman has now overseen four consecutive defeats in all competitions in the last month, and it has ultimately led to him being on the brink of losing his job.
The biggest indictment of the malaise afflicting England’s biggest club was Van Gaal’s belief that his expensively-assembled team “did not dare to play football in the first half”. What more can I say?
In recent weeks United have been in even worse form than the Blues and are under more pressure to take three points at Old Trafford.
The game will come just 48 hours after a 2-0 humbling by Stoke City – United’s fourth defeat in a row and third straight loss in the Premier League. At half-time, I said to my players we have nothing to lose, and then you can cope better with that in the second half.
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Club captain Rooney has scored just two league goals so far this season and rarely looked like adding to that tally at Stoke, although he did set up Marouane Fellaini for a chance that was impressively saved by home keeper Jack Butland. We all have to take responsibility for that, we are all in it together. The players have failed to score from opportunities created and there is a lack of intensity that has plagued them.
