• Premier League

Van Gaal admits to system failure at United

Louis van Gaal admits he has tinkered with tactics too often and is still searching for the best system to make the most of the Manchester United players at his disposal.

Van Gaal worked hard to implement a 3-5-2 formation after he arrived at the club in the summer but has since changed to 4 5-1 and, in the 1-0 win against Crystal Palace last weekend he reverted to 4-1-4-1.

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Injuries have played their part with Daley Blind forced to drop back to play at centre-half, but Van Gaal conceded the team needs more consistency.

"It's too much [change to formation], I agree," he said. "But I'm looking for the balance and when you see the last four matches, we have had more balance because we haven't conceded many goals.

"Nevertheless, we don't score so much. With the other system, we scored a lot of goals."

One of Van Gaal's concerns comes with where to play £59.7 million summer signing Angel Di Maria, who has struggled after scoring three goals in his first four appearances for the club. The winger was not his usual self in the win over Palace and Van Gaal thinks that his star man needs to adapt his style of play.

"He has played in a very small space and he is a dribbler but sometimes you cannot dribble," he said. "You have to make it a pass game, and Di Maria is not a player who wants to give a pass every time he gets the ball.

"But in this case we needed that and not dribbles. Therefore he lost the ball a lot of times and that was not good for the balance of the team.

"Of course, we need to raise our level. It's a matter of time but it's also a matter of getting over a lot of injuries."

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