Louis van Gaal was an unhappy Dutchman following Manchester United’s 2-1 victory over Southampton.
[MORE: Full recap of Manchester United’s 2-1 win over Southampton]
Robin van Persie fed United a pair of goals against the run of play, but the Red Devil manager wasn’t at all happy with what took place on the field.
“We lost the ball too easily in the first half, and we didn’t have very good positional play,” van Gaal said following the match. “The only chances Southampton created was when we lost the ball, and that was not good in spite of our good result. We got a present also from Southampton. You need confidence on the ball and that we don’t have. I said something about that during halftime, and in the second time we had a better part of the game, but I think Southampton played better than Manchester United, but we were the lucky guy.”
Overall, Manchester United completed 380 of 466 passes (82%), and held 48% of the possession. They were sloppy, and Southampton’s goal came directly from a Marouane Fellaini giveaway.
Ashley Young was the worst Manchester United offender of sloppy passing on the day, displaying a woeful 31 of 46 completed passes, just 67%.
Unfortunately for the home side, things weren’t much better, and they fell victim to mistakes of their own. Southampton failed to mark van Persie on a set-piece that resulted in the second United goal, and they misplaced 20% of their own passes as well (402 of 505 completed).
