Van Gaal: United were creative and dominant but forgot how to score

Louis van Gaal says Manchester United did everything right but the ball in the back of the net against West Ham.

United were held to a 0-0 draw by the Hammers at Old Trafford, as Marouane Fellaini struck the woodwork in the first half and had a shot saved from three yards by Adrian after the break, while Anthony Martial, Jesse Lingard and Bastian Schweinsteiger all spurned good opportunities in front of goal.

Fans have been growing increasingly frustrated by the side’s lack of goals, with the result the Red Devils’ sixth goalless stalemate of the season.

“I think that we played a very good match, it’s only we have to score. You must score out of the kind of chances we created,” Van Gaal told MUTV.

“You need to score, otherwise you cannot win, and it is very frustrating, also for the players because they want to score. We have to finish better than we did today.

“You can train every day on shooting at the goal and you have to know that we are doing that. We put players in the position to score but you need composure and luck to score.

“The most important thing is that we are creating and we are dominant. Today, we were dominant and attacking, we were creating chances – only we forgot to score.”

United’s players were booed off at the full-time whistle as West Ham could easily have snatched all three points, hitting the woodwork twice and wasting a great chance when Victor Moses missed when played clean through.

However when Dutchman Van Gaal was asked whether he could understand the fans’ frustrations, he replied: “Yes and no, because they can see that we fought until the end.

“There was a fantastic team spirit and we were dominant. We created many chances and you can only do that when you are attacking; we attacked much more than our opponents, who were defending in their square of 40 metres.

“That’s always difficult but we created a lot of chances. Yes, you have to score from those chances and we didn’t do that. That is our problem in the latest matches.”

Van Gaal defended his tactics, saying his possession-style football had served him well during his successful spells in Spain, Holland and Germany.

“(The booing fans) don’t like the style of play from Manchester United, but everyone knows in advance that all the teams of Louis van Gaal is playing like that,” he added.

“So when you have that question, then I say, okay, in Barcelona or Bayern Munich or AZ we have played like that.”

When asked whether a top striker like Sergio Aguero or Luis Suarez would score goals in is his team, Van Gaal said: “That’s a question mark. You never know. I think they would.”