Unhappy Louis van Gaal blasts Man United stars following Everton defeat

Angry Louis van Gaal launched a scathing attack on his side after he insisted they were beaten even before kick off at Goodison.

The Manchester United boss was annoyed by a performance from his side he branded as lacking in “motivation, inspiration and aggression”.

And being almost bullied by Everton in the 3-0 reverse, the Dutch coach admitted that he saw even in the warm up that his side weren’t up for the fight - and feared the worst.

Van Gaal stormed: “That is the most disappointing performance since I came here because it is the first time that I have seen that our motivation, inspiration and aggression was not so high as the opponent.

“In sport you shall always be compared to your opponent and that was the reason. I had already the feeling (before kick off) and my colleagues Ryan Giggs and Albert Stuivenberg had the feeling because the warm up was not so good as usual.

“And then you say that in the last minutes before the game you hope you can recover and stimulate your players, but then it is too late. You have to prepare the match already two or three days before and Everton has done that and they have won because of that.”

This was United’s first back-to-back defeat since Van Gaal took over last summer.

He added: “We have always had more fighting spirit on the pitch and I think that this is the first match that the other team have shown more of that than us. It is not good, but we are human beings and it happens – they deserved to win and you can live with it.”

Meanwhile, defender Chris Smalling admitted that United were second best in the game and believes that his team were "off the pace" right from the word go.

He revealed that Van Gaal had some damning words for the team on their performance after the match, which saw them fail to leapfrog Manchester City back to second place in the league.

Smalling said: "I think that was the first time this season that we were off the pace from the first whistle. From the first moment to the last we were second best.

"I think we lacked aggression," he added.

"That is what the manager emphasised to us after the game, that they seemed to want it more than us. Everton were very compact and we could not find the gaps and break them down.

"That is going to be the way that teams line up against us though after the run of results we have had."

 

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