van Gaal: Manchester United secured a very difficult win

Manchester United came from behind to beat Wolfsburg 2-1 at Old Trafford in the second matchday of the Champions League group stage.

Manager Louis van Gaal was pleased with the result that gave Manchester United the three points and a fighting chance at progressing in the competition. Losing to the Bundesliga side at home would have been disastrous, but the team proved resilient in coming back from an early deficit.

Daniel Caligiuri opened the scoring in the fourth minute due to some poor defending from United’s back line, but Juan Mata equalized later in the half from the penalty spot. Chris Smalling completed the comeback in the second half with a brilliant Mata back-heel setting him up.

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The manager was happy with the final result, though he was less than happy with how the team went about it, as evident by his interview with MUTV:

"“It was a very good win, it was a must-win and it was very difficult when you start with one goal behind in the first four minutes, when they scored a fantastic goal, I have to admit. Then it is very difficult to beat a German team; they were very organised and structured but in spite of that we came back in the match and we created a lot of chances.”"

For the time leading up to Mata’s goal, Manchester United put the opposition under enormous pressure and a goal seemed imminent. However, following the tying goal, the team backed off a bit, and van Gaal offered a possible reason why:

"“You have to continue and we did, but only for the first 15 minutes, I think. After the goal it was transforming our team, because we didn’t keep the ball anymore and I didn’t see Wolfsburg pressing so much, so we gave the ball away. We did it by ourselves because the players are tired and the accumulation of the matches is very high in England.”“The last five matches we have kept the ball fantastically in our possession and now we couldn’t do it anymore. We have to recover, recover and recover because Sunday is Arsenal and they played yesterday, so they have one more day of recovery.”"

The past several weeks have been trying for the squad, with the Wolfsburg match the sixth since September 12th. Unlike last season where the squad seemed in constant flux, the same core group of players has been used this campaign. While it has contributed to better consistency, it has also led to a more fatigued lineup.