United 1 Palace 3: Ole's press conference
TranscriptJournalists quizzed the boss on our display, transfers and that penalty incident in his media briefing...
Q: Awful lot in that performance that must have frustrated you? OGS: “Yes you can see we are short and they deserved the points. They were sharper than us in the chances, the tackles. We started off slowly and that had a knock on affect for the rest of the game and they got the first goal.” Q: Short is that because the season finished so late? What do you put it down to? OGS: “We had a ling season last season and didn’t finish until 16 August and we have not had preparation time to be sharper. Of course, we have worked hard with the ones who have been here. There have been a few players on internationals but I believe when I spoke to Roy (Hodgson) they have had four friendlies and three competitive games and that was a bit different to our one against Aston Villa last week.” Q: How easy going to be to find form? No time to play yourself into form? OGS: No we don’t but you have to make the most of the time you have got and we have already started playing catch up of course and it showed that we need time but we will improve hopefully quicker than we saw today. Today was a performance you don’t see very often from these players. Because these players are better than what they showed today.” Q: What did you make of the VAR decisions? OGS: “I feel it was not a penalty because I think the ball comes from so close to Vic where cab he put his hands? The decision to retake it is probably th right one if you follow the rules because both of David’s heels were off the line. It is harsh on David and us but probably th right decision if you follow the rules.” Q: Van de Beek must at least be a crumb of comfort? OGS: Yes he gave us a bit of belief that we could get something from the game. Donny is bright, he sees space and sees the ball where it is going to land in the box and that is what he is going to give us. That is why we have signed him. He has that knack of finding the right areas in the box . We needed that because, notary often, but sometimes we got round them and put crosses in but we didn’t have the players in the box in the right areas.” Q: Do United need signings in order to compete after what you saw today? OGS: “Well, we can play so much better than today. If you look at the players we had on the pitch and on the bench and those not here we need to look within first. We need to look at ourselves and know that we have to perform better. “Then again we are always looking to improve if there is something out there that is available at the right price. We always want to strengthen. But we can all look at ourselves in the mirror first.” Q: Are you worried about Victor Lindelof fatigue? OGS: “We all need games. We all need sharpness and time to get back to our best. We are going to get better. Today we didn’t defend as well as could have done but I wouldn’t doubt any fingers at any individuals. No I wouldn’t.” Q: Are you saying you should look in the mirror yourselves? OGS: “Yes, I did. We should look within and everyone will know we can perform better than this. This was an off day. We were not sharp enough and everyone knows they can improve and we will improve because we ahem just started our pre-season more or less.” Q: As disappointing as it has been as hopes were high? OGS: I am disappointed . Sometimes you cane’t be too surprised when we are not at our best yet because this os the first game and we played until middle of August and had a short and strange pre-season. I was hoping for better today but they deserved it. They prove to eb a difficult side. We need to improve and we need to improve quickly.”