Van Gaal: Depay and Lingard were fantastic

Manchester United could be without 10 players for Wednesday night’s Champions League Group B clash against PSV Eindhoven.

The next task is to maintain that and not take a step backwards like we have tended to do, next up is PSV with a chance to qualify for the next round of the Champions League and then a trip to league leaders Leicester. 2 wins would be huge.

With his attack depleted by Rooney’s illness and Martial’s ankle injury, the Dutch manager had to improvise and United’s dilemma was exacerbated by the absence of their normal emergency option in times of crisis, Marouane Fellaini, who was out with a calf injury.

Van Gaal said: “We are in a lousy period because there are a lot of injuries”.

For three short minutes at Vicarage Road yesterday, Manchester United rolled back the years. “We didn’t play with real swagger today but we showed character and fought until the final seconds”.

MANCHESTER UNITED: De Gea 8; Young 6, Jones 7 (69 McNair 6), Smalling 8, Blind 6; Schneiderlin 6, Schweinsteiger 7; Mata 6 (78 Pereira 5), Herrera 7 (25 Rojo 6), Lingard 7; Depay 8.

“Rooney is ill and illness is a matter of days, not weeks”, added van Gaal. We have to wait and see if he can play Wednesday. He is at home. I think, the whole season, we have had a good spirit.

“My three favourite players were Ronaldo, the Brazilian, Ronaldinho and (Zinedine) Zidane because they’re players who were handsome to watch play and they’re ones who made me want to play football.”, Martial said in an interview with Footlocker.

Van Gaal admitted that he didn’t plan for a horror injury to Shaw in the summer, convinced that the former Saints left-back would have a tremendous season. We created a lot of chances and we could have finished the game much earlier when you saw the chances that Jesse Lingard had. “We were very good in other games – so good that it was boring”.

De Gea made five or six sensational saves to deny Troy Deeney, Amen Abdi and Odion Ighalo in the second half, keeping Man United in the game despite looking the worse side.

United supporters were anxious they would be without Martial for a few time when he left Wembley on crutches following France’s defeat to England with his left foot in a bandage.

Bastian Schweinsteiger turned a loose ball goalwards and Deeney bundled it over the line.

“It’s possible. It means Deeney is fighting in every moment in every part of the pitch”. “So we can take positive conclusions from it”.