Van Gaal: Traffic made fans leave early

“When I was looking at matches to analyse an opponent, I have done that also – I leave the stadium five minutes before”.

United needed a stoppage-time Wayne Rooney penalty to overcome the League One side after producing another drab display that saw droves of home fans leave before the final whistle at Old Trafford.

“What do I do now?”

But neither result was enough to ease the pressure on United boss Van Gaal because of the boring and uninspiring performances of his team.

How long do you think the Red Devils will put up with Van Gaal?

When asked if he could understand that particular viewpoint, Van Gaal conceded that he had also been left frustrated by his side’s failure to breakdown the opposition.

But he defended his philosophy and said: “I’m not Sir Alex [Ferguson], as you know”.

“You have to be happy as a Manchester United fan that we are in next round and we have won the last two games”, Van Gaal told reporters ahead of the Premier League game at Newcastle United on Tuesday. “It’s not an easy time now”.

“I don’t think there will be many fans who will be happy with that performance. You can mention how they leave but you can also mention how they come”.

“I am more thinking how we have to attack and improve”. Now we have won two games in a row it might give us a boost.

Addressing the mass exodus after the match, Van Gaal asserted that many fans may have abandoned their seats “because of the traffic”.

“That they are ironic, I can imagine”. “When you don’t score in the first 15 minutes, they keep this [approach] in 90 minutes also because they are getting motivation out of the fact we are not scoring”.

“Paul Scholes has been outspoken about his old side and I can’t disagree”, he wrote in his column in The Sun.

So why, after spending over a quarter of a billion pounds on new players, can Van Gaal not inspire his team to perform well on a regular basis? But the fans also have to know we can’t always play fantastic football and that was also the case in former days when it didn’t happen. Sometimes the players who are on our sideline we can influence but if we can only influence one player then the individual player has to communicate with the other players.