Van Gaal Furious At Referee Dean

Rooney’s penalty conversion, bullet goal and deft set up for Anders Lingard’s strike amounted to the United and England captain’s best performance of the season in the dramatic 3-3 draw at St James’ Park. Maybe then some young players will be proud to play against me. “By the end we actually had more possession that Manchester United”.

“I think you see that Chancel Mbemba handled the ball on objective, consciously, so that’s a penalty”, Van Gaal told reporters, as quoted by FourFourTwo.

“There were big chances for (Jesse) Lingard and (Marouane) Fellaini and we didn’t do that. When the referee gives a penalty for nothing it is a duel I think and you can not decide who is worse but we gave it away”.

“For their penalty, it’s heavyweight wrestling between Mitrovic and Chris Smalling”.

“We have a fantastic defence, but we conceded three goals, now is the defence weak?”

Louis Van Gaal’s relationship with the English media is under scrutiny once more after he called one journalist “fat man” as he left his post match press conference.

Smalling and his team-mates surrendered 2-0 and 3-2 leads against relegation-threatened Newcastle in midweek and the defender said United need to be stronger in such situations. We could have gone on to win the game when it was 2-2 but then they scored and we nearly lost it – a draw is the right result and I think both teams can be happy with the point. “Only one team (Manchester United’s opponents) wants to waste time and frustrate opponents”, he added. “It must have been a great game for the neutral – it was a heart attack for the coaches”.

“We’ve shown character, attitude”. It’s good for my confidence and I hope I’ll keep scoring. The failure to win saw United drop to sixth position ahead of Sunday’s trip to Anfield to face Liverpool, with Tottenham able to move five points clear in fourth place with a victory at home to Leicester on Wednesday.

“I’m here to play and I have played well in the last few games”, he said.