Louis van Gaal was very candid with his responses following Manchester United’s 3-0 defeat against Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium today.
Goals from Alexis Sánchez and Mesut Özil condemned the Reds to a crushing defeat, and it allows the Gunners to leapfrog the Reds into second in the Premier League table heading into a international break.
The United manager told the assembled press in the post-match press conference that he did not expect such a disappointing performance from his side.
“I didn’t expect that. I was surprised,” the Dutchman said. “No performing our game plan, no will to win. We were top of the league so I was surprised – maybe amazed is a better word.”
When you give a team like Arsenal so much space to play football, you know you shall lose. We have prepared ourselves in that way, to play more compact but not to lose our aggression. It was amazing for me and very disappointing.
United conceded all three goals in the first twenty minutes, and van Gaal said that the worse thing was the fact that most of United’s players would be leaving for international duty in the coming days and he could not rebuild confidence by rectifying the mistakes made today.
“I don’t know why it turned out like that. Normally I say things how I see them in the game. The players are in an emotional moment because we have lost. We have lost in a way you cannot lose when you are top of the league. You cannot start like that. The worse thing is everyone is flying away [for international duty]. So I cannot build a new situation to build up confidence.”
However, van Gaal did praise the United fans for their support throughout the game, even if the team was three goals down for most of the game. “I always send the players to the fans because they are there always,” he said.
They always support us. Despite the 3-0 loss, they supported us. I think you always have to thank them – not only now, when we have lost 3-0, but when we have won, too, when it is more easy.
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