Van Gaal Hails "Best Match So Far"

Louis van Gaal felt Manchester United’s performance in beating Inter Milan on Tuesday was the best of his three games in charge so far.

The Reds overcame the Italian outfit 5-3 on penalties after a goalless 90 minutes in Washington DC, to stay top of the International Champions Cup group with five points.

Van Gaal made eight changes at the break but both his sides were dominant in defence, with goalkeepers Anders Lindegaard and David De Gea virtual spectators.

"I am very pleased," the manager said. "I think we played by far the best match of our sequence of three.

"They only had one shot on our goal and that was given by the referee [a free-kick], but I think we also created six or seven chances, so then it is seven against one.

"I was very pleased with our ball possession; it was much better than the other matches. And I think also the positions were better covered.

"So tonight I was very pleased with the performance of my players, both in the first half and the second half."

United were successful with all five spot-kicks in front of 61,000 fans in the US capital and van Gaal admitted the squad had been working on them in training.

"We practised penalties yesterday and also the sequence," he said. "That is why De Gea was our goalkeeper in the second half, because he is the best of the four at penalties.

"Fletcher hit the post in training so it's also a little bit of luck, but we deserved the victory."

United’s defence – containing a variety of players – have now kept two clean sheets in three games so far on Tour 2014, presented by Aon.

Van Gaal continued: "The first match was zero goals, the second match was a fantastic goal by Pjanic, an error from the goalkeeper and a penalty given by the referee, and today again zero goals.

"So we are doing well but we are looking for defenders, because a lot of defenders have gone. We have to replace them but I also like Michael Keane and Tyler Blackett."

Shinji Kagawa played in the playmaker role in the second half after replacing Juan Mata, having also been used as a holding midfielder in the previous two games.

"I know him from Borussia Dortmund and he played in the no.10 position," van Gaal added. "I wanted to try him in the no.6 or no.8 position in our system in the first two matches, and then I also gave him a chance at no.10 because he wanted to play in that position. He did it much better than in the two matches before."

Of second-half substitutes Luke Shaw and Wilfried Zaha, the boss said: "Luke is working very hard and he was lucky because normally I would have played our friend Reece James, but he was a little bit injured.

"And so I asked him in spite of a very heavy training session this morning and I think he did very well.

"I was pleased with Wilfried's performance but we have to wait and see. He has a lot of competition with the other strikers."