Louis van Gaal believes there is plenty of room for improvement from Manchester United after their 2-1 Barclays Premier League win at Arsenal.
A Kieran Gibbs own goal and Wayne Rooney’s strike five minutes from time were enough to render Olivier Giroud’s stunning added-time effort a consolation. But United were indebted to goalkeeper David De Gea for keeping them in a first half that Arsenal completely dominated.
Van Gaal identified slack passing as the root of his team’s early problems and also criticised United lacking ruthlessness when they improved after the break.
“I was not pleased with the way we played in the first half but, of course, it was an away game against a top team and we have won,” said Van Gaal, after watching United triumph on the road for the first time in his tenure and move up to fourth place. “It was the right moment to win this game but I have to say that the first 35 minutes, we gave the ball away so easily – that is not possible for a top team.
“Because of that Arsenal created a lot of chances. Fortunately we have a very good goalkeeper and after the first 35 minutes you saw that we were coming back into the game. We created a few possibilities and at half-time I said that when we keep the ball and show confidence then we shall create many, many chances.
“We created at least three big chances – [Angel] Di Maria could have finished the game – but also two times where the [final] pass was easy to give to Di Maria and Wayne Rooney and the pass did not arrive. Those were not very difficult passes in my opinion so we have to improve that.”
United’s struggles during the opening stages were compounded by an ankle injury to Luke Shaw, further stretching defensive resources that forced Van Gaal to field young centre-backs Tyler Blackett and Paddy McNair in a 3-5-2 formation.
“I hope there are players coming back from injuries because it is unbelievably difficult to create consistency in the team,” Van Gaal said. “Every week I have to change my line-up. I am the kind of coach who always has the same line-up and maybe changes one or two – not constantly [changing] so much players.
“Not the players but also the formation. That is not always good for the team.”
Wenger frustrated
Arsene Wenger was left to rue his Arsenal side not making their dominance count.
“It’s a game that we dominated for 80 per cent of the time and it’s a long time since we dominated games against Man United like we did today,” said Wenger, whose eighth-place side are 15 points behind leaders Chelsea. “But at the end of the day we were not efficient enough in the final third offensively and made a mistake at the back and they took advantage of it.”
“We had plenty of chances. Their keeper is man of the match. That tells you the story of the game.”
“We missed a few opportunities in the second half, even in the final 20 minutes. You have to be efficient in top-level games and we were not efficient enough in our good periods, but there were a lot of positives in the game today. Even if we are very, very disappointed, we have to keep that and rectify. At the moment defensively we are a bit naive.”
source: premierleague.com
STUDIO 3 NEWCASTLE AUSTRALIA 