Van Gaal: We Can Compete For Title

Louis van Gaal believes Manchester United can compete for the Barclays Premier League title after his side moved up to second with a 3-2 win at Southampton on Sunday.

Goals from Anthony Martial (2) and Juan Mata were enough to outweigh Graziano Pelle's brace and secure an important victory over the hard-working Saints at St Mary's.

Speaking afterwards to both MUTV and Sky Sports, the boss gave his analysis of the result, the title race and his new signing from Monaco who has made a sensational start to life at United...

Van Gaal on moving up to second in the Premier League: "It's a fantastic result away at Southampton and I think we have made a statement that we shall compete for the title."

On the performance: “We were ahead against Swansea City and we were also ahead against PSV, but we controlled this match better and we played to kill the game. After the Champions League match against PSV, our players were tired and you could see that in the last 15 minutes. But I liked the way we played because we controlled, in the second half, the game for 30 minutes. But the last 15 minutes were difficult.”

An assessment of Martial’s performance and future at United: “He is always an attacking point for a lot of players and that I like in him. He is always running in behind and that I like also. But he is an attacking point and he keeps the ball so he is very important for us already. You cannot say he is ahead of schedule. He has the talent to do it but the Premier League has a lot of rhythm and there is a lot of physical influence from the defenders, but he is also a strong guy. We can expect maybe more consistency than I had expected, but you never know. We are only three games in.”

Reaction to the 44 passes that led to Mata’s goal: “It is our philosophy. We are not playing the ball around in a positional game to only control the game, but also to create chances. When you do that, it is a good example for our philosophy, but it is also confirmation that we are on the right way.”

More on the title race: “What I am saying all the time is that we have to improve. We have to improve our team and when we improve our team, last season we were fourth so maybe we can be third now. But last year we were close enough to be the champions. I have said that we were very close last year. When you remember the match against Chelsea away, it was very close but we did not score at the time. Scoring is the most important thing, you have seen that today, Southampton could have scored to go 2-0 up in the first 15 minutes but they didn’t do it and then we scored. We were the better team after that.”

Why was Matteo Darmian replaced by Antonio Valencia at half-time? “It was a tactical change because Tadic had a lot of space and was very dangerous for us. I wanted to eliminate that with Valencia and he did that very well I think.”

Praise for David De Gea and his save to deny Jose Fonte: “He is the goalkeeper to do that. Also, Sergio Romero has saved us in games. Now David De Gea did that with that remarkable save from the header of Fonte. It was fantastic. Therefore, we are very happy that we shall stay with us."

Can United win the title? “Of course we shall always strive for it. We did that also last year. You cannot expect a title from a team in transition, but when we are close we shall grab it!”