Louis van Gaal: Man Utd deserved to win

Crunch Sports Staff
in Soccer 24 Aug 2021
Louis van Gaal (credit: OLI SCARFF/AFP/Getty Images)

Louis van Gaal thought his Manchester United side should have taken all three points from Saturday lunchtime’s goalless draw with Newcastle United.

In the opening 20 minutes, Van Gaal’s side steamrollered the visitors and did everything but score the opening goal.

Wayne Rooney had a goal disallowed for offside and Tim Krul denied Juan Mata before Steve McClaren’s side improved defensively.

Aleksandar Mirtrovic was inches away from giving the Magpies the lead just before half-time, but his looping header hit the crossbar, while in the second half Rooney went close with a header, Javier Hernandez was denied by Krul at point-blank range, Mata fired over and Chris Smalling hit the base of the post with a last-gasp header.

Newcastle almost won it late on through Florian Thauvin, but Van Gaal said afterwards: “We can be satisfied with the performance but not with the result – we were unlucky.

“We did not make the right choices in the final third but we played fantastic as a team. I like these kinds of games when we work like this, but not this result.

“The performance was one of the best in my period but we don’t reward ourselves and there was only one club that wanted to win and that was us.”