Louis van Gaal savoured his first Premier League win as Manchester United manager – but said the 4-0 win over QPR was even more special for his wife.
With his defence depleted by injuries, the Dutchman was forced to change his three-man backline to four, but it was United’s attack that impressed as goals from Angel Di Maria, Ander Herrera, Wayne Rooney and Juan Mata, gave his new-look side a resounding success.
And van Gaal said: “This is special because it is also the birthday of my wife (Truus). I have already given her a present but she said the biggest present shall be the victory. We give it to her.
“We were very dominant and scored goals and kept a clean sheet. The most important thing is not the system, but the philosophy. I work already more than 25 years and I have played always to attack. And all my teams have scored the most of the league so I hope at the end of this league we shall score the most.
“The purpose of our goal is to be in the first three because we have to qualify for the Champions League, but that is not the most important thing.
“The most important thing is trajectory. We are building a process and we have to play in a certain style. At the end I hope to be manager of the champions of the Premier League. If it is not this year, then in my second year or my third year, but I want to give the championship to the fans.”
Despite Di Maria’s outstanding display, van Gaal wanted more from the Argentine, as well as his team.
“When you make three goals and score the first goal then you cannot play bad, but he had a lot of unnecessary losses [of the ball] so we can do better, even Angel di Maria,” he added. “It is nearly impossible but I am analysing the game and I see things we can improve as a team.”
On this showing, QPR face a hard task to avoid returning back into the Championship and boss Harry Redknapp said: “We just didn’t have that cutting edge up front to cause them enough problems.
“They have got a big chance of making the top four, for sure. They have got some fantastic attacking players.”
