Team News: Manchester United to miss two key players against Crystal Palace

Manchester United manager Louis Van Gaal confirmed that they’ll be without the services of Radamel Falcao and Marcos Rojo against Crystal Palace. Falcao has missed the last two games against Chelsea and Manchester City after picking up a calf injury in training and is yet to recover fully. Van Gaal revealed that the game against Palace will come too soon for the Chilean, “The problem for Falcao is because of balance in the game. I had to change, he came in and assisted a goal. Then in training he was injured.”

Falcao

The Dutchman also revealed that prior to his recent injury, he did not feature much mainly due to tactical reasons, “I cannot judge now because he is injured and I changed him not because of his performance but because of the balance of the team, which is much more important than the individual.”

In their last game against Manchester City, the United backline comprised of Valencia, McNair, Carrick and Shaw as summer signing Marcos Rojo injured his shoulder in the 1st half and had to be taken off and Chris Smalling was given his marching orders. Van Gaal could go with the same players again as he said that Rojo will miss some time due to a dislocated shoulder, “Rojo dislocated his shoulder but he did it as positive a way as you can.

“We do not need him to have an operation, so that is a relief but maybe with this injury it is very likely that it can happen again and that is the problem.

“There is the risk it can happen again. The human body is made by God, not me. But it can be less than six weeks.”

Van Gaal rejects opinions of weak defence

The United defence was being laughed at last time but still performed admirably against Manchester City. Van Gaal went on to support his backline and said that they have done pretty well except against Leicester City, “I don’t agree with your opinion of the defence (that it’s too weak).

“If you don’t count the five goals at Leicester, we have better than Chelsea I believe. That’s not the problem, the balance is.

“That is why I have remodelled the structure of my team. Now I have to solve the problems of the injuries every week, that’s another story.”

United are up against Crystal Palace who are in 17th position in the League. Van Gaal’s team are playing at home, which could be a big factor as they have been far more impressive at Old Trafford compared to playing away from home.