After Sunday’s shock defeat to newly promoted Leicester City, Manchester United players were asking questions of Louis Van Gaal’s management. United had lost a two goal lead after being 3-1 up at the King Power stadium before Van Gaal decided to substitute record signing Angel Di Maria. This sparked Fury in the United dressing room leading to one player asking the question “Why the f*** did we substitute Di Maria?”
The United boss openly criticised his team’s performance in the dressing room. This led to Rafael suffering criticism from his team mates for his part in conceding Leicester’s first penalty which led to their fightback.
United spent £156 million in the summer but only £16 million of that was spent on a centre back. Van Gaal will not rush to buy a centre back in January even though they’re most experienced defender Jonny Evans suffered an ankle injury which has mounted on their defensive problems. After Sunday’s performance Gary Nevile claimed that United were not good enough and were ‘soft centred’ whilst Jamie Carragher branded United’s recruitment plan as ‘mismanagement’.
Although they will not rush, United have their sights set on centre backs Ron Vlaar of Aston Villa and Basle’s Fabian Schar. In the mean time Van Gaal has spoken about his defensive choices saying “I think that Shaw will be fit enough to play. Marcos Rojo can play and Chris Smalling can play, so we can manage. But it’s a thin choice.”
Out of his six games in charge so far Van Gaal has only managed one win which was an impressive 4-0 win at home to QPR but United have failed to win the other 5 games played in all competitions. The united boss said after the game “I was not so satisfied with Rooney as a striker and Mata as a midfielder. This is why I changed. Rooney can play in more positions, he’s a multi-functional player.”
Written by Connor Breen
