Their exit cut off one potential avenue
to Champions League football next season and with United four points
behind City, who occupy the fourth and final qualifying berth in the
Premier League, Van Gaal knows that defeat at the Etihad Stadium on
Sunday could be fatal.
“We have to beat Manchester City because that is the other chance to qualify ourselves for the Champions League,” he told his post-match press conference at Old Trafford. With the FA Cup now the only competition United can win, Van Gaal was asked if failure to overcome Liverpool had increased the pressure on both him and his team. “The pressure was also today,” the embattled Dutchman replied. “Manchester United always has pressure. The expectations are always high. The pressure for these players is always very high. We know that and we can cope with that. But we were not lucky today (Thursday).”
Trailing 2-0 after last week’s one-sided
first leg at Anfield, United halved Liverpool’s aggregate deficit in
the 32nd minute when Anthony Martial lured Nathaniel Clyne into a rash
foul and scored the resulting penalty. But Philippe Coutinho restored
Liverpool’s two-goal cushion on the stroke of half-time with a goal that
manager Jurgen Klopp described as “genius” — the Brazilian leaving
Guillermo Varela for dead and then dinking a shot past United goalkeeper
David de Gea at his near post. The game’s closing stages played out to a
soundtrack of crowing chants from the away fans, but Van Gaal felt that
his team had dominated to the same extent that Liverpool had in the
first leg.
“We have played like Liverpool played in the home match with us,” said the United manager, who was presiding over his 150th European game. “We have done that with them. We have created a lot of chances. We scored a penalty. (Jesse) Lingard, (Juan) Mata, (Marouane) Fellaini, Martial (had chances), and then you concede one goal in the last seconds. “That’s what we did not do in Liverpool. They scored the away goal and that was the difference.”
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