Van Gaal Frustrated By Tottenham Draw

Louis van Gaal rued missed chances and two lost points after his Manchester United side played out an entertaining but frustrating goalless draw with Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane on Sunday.

Juan Mata, Robin van Persie, Radamel Falcao and Ashley Young all went close to scoring in the Barclays Premier League fixture but could not beat Spurs goalkeeper Hugh Lloris, who was tellingly given the Man of the Match award by broadcasters BT Sport.

“We lost two points I think,” reflected van Gaal. “We had the best performance of Manchester United’s season in the first half, we could have scored four or five goals I think, but we didn’t reward ourselves. In the second half, it was more of a struggle than football.

“You could see [then] that the players could not recover in two days. It was an ugly match. In the first half we played very well, but when you do not score goals then you cannot win. I said already before the matches, it is the culture of England [to play twice in 48 hours]. I think the human body cannot recover with 48 hours and in the second half it was a struggle.

“We gave three possibilities or chances away but we could have also scored from three possibilities - Juan Mata, van Persie and Falcao could have scored. The first half was a fantastic half of ours, but then you have to finish the attacks and we were not so effective today.”

United are now exactly halfway through the league season and van Gaal admitted his team would have been ahead of schedule with victory against Spurs. “I should have been satisfied if we had won today because then we would have had 38 points out of 19 matches and that is two points a match on average, which is very good.”