Video: Louis Van Gaal warns Gary Neville to be careful while speaking about Manchester United
Following a fifth win on the trot, Manchester United manager Louis Van Gaal has questioned United legend Gary Neville’s comments that the team " got away with murder ". The Red Devils registered their second away win of the season on Monday, when they beat Southampton 2-1 at the St. Mary’s Stadium. Robin Van Persie was the star of the show, scoring a brace. The win helped United climb to the third position in the table.
Gary Neville, during his post-match analysis on SkySports, said that the Manchester United vs Liverpool match next week could resemble a ‘pub match’ referring to it as “the Dog and Duck versus the Red Lion”. The 39-year-old won 8 Premier league titles and 2 UEFA Champions League trophies during his 19-year-old stay at the club.
But the 63-year-old was clearly unimpressed with Neville’s statements and advised him to be careful with his words.
"The former player of United? That's an English expression? Hmm: maybe (United got away with murder),” Van Gaal said.
"He can say everything because he is an ex-legend, but as an ex-legend, or a legend, you have to know what you are saying,” he added.
"You can interpret: make an interpretation of that.
"It's not so difficult to make an interpretation, when I say he has to pay attention to his words," the former Netherlands boss said.
Van Persie’s best performance: Van Gaal
Van Gaal added that only few players performed very well, but lauded Robin Van Persie’s effort, calling it his best performance so far.
"I think that not only the goals are telling something about Robin Van Persie, I think also his performance: he was one of only three players on the pitch of Manchester United who were good, or maybe very good.
He had a great influence on the result. Until now that is his best performance,” Van Gaal said.
"Too many players were not good. There was a range of course between good and bad, but they were not good.
Normally you have six, seven, eight who are good and three in that other range. But today there were too many players in that range who were not good, I believe." The former Barcelona manager said.
Van Gaal also fired an indirect jibe at his one-time advisory at Barcelona, Ronald Koeman, when he said that the team that plays better always deserved to win.
"Of course if you are the better team you deserve more, but believe me it is always the goals that are counting.
When we played the first six or seven matches, we never won and we were always the better team.
In that time I didn't say anything about that. You have to learn that also, " Van Gaal said.