This probably isn’t the sort of reaction Manchester United fans were looking for from their manager after being dumped out of the Champions League.
After slumping to a 3-2 defeat to Wolsburg, Manchester United were sent packing to the Europa League.
Although admitting that it was “difficult to defend himself” after the result in the post-match presser, Louis van Gaal did seem to wheel out a lot of excuses following the match.
Speaking to BT Sport, the Dutchman took aim at the officials in the game over Jesse Lingard’s disallowed own goal. The goal was ruled out after Juan Mata was deemed to be interfering with play from an offside position.
“When you see that [the disallowed goal] as a linesman then you are very good and you give first that it is a goal and then a few players come and say to you, and then you change your mind, it’s strange in my opinion.”
“I don’t think that the goalkeeper was interfered by Mata because the ball is turning in the goal so I don’t think he can reach that ball, but of course he sees Mata in the offside position and he takes the benefit of that and they are criticising the referee.”
“The decisions of the referee – that is not a positive for us. So when it’s a tight group, this can happen.”
LVG queries the referee's decision to disallow Juan Mata's goal following @ManUtd's exit from the @ChampionsLeague. https://t.co/U1NoWlBihA
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) December 9, 2015
In the post-match press conference, LVG focused on the injury to Chris Smalling hampering their performance on the night.
“When you see the circumstances in what we have to play the match with a lot of injuries and also the last 15-20 minutes we had to play with 10 players (because Chris Smalling was struggling with an injury) you have to analyse that also.”
“The circumstances were not so good for Manchester United to play this game. That’s difficult to understand because the fans and the players but also the manager want to win every game, but it’s not like that, in sport you can lose also.”
The moment that may have been when he claimed that it would “only be a matter of time” before United start challenging Europe’s elite again. When journalists pressed him to give an actual time frame for accomplishing this, he refused to answer then snapped at the reporters.
“You want to interfere,” he said, meaning ‘interrupt’. “You give the question and you have to listen.”
