(Manchester United News)
Manchester United boss Louis van Gaal is still striving for perfection from his team, despite the tremendous form that has yielded eight wins in the last nine league games.
The Dutchman still insists the Reds have not played well over an entire 90 minutes and he is looking for more from his troops. Speaking five days after his side mauled Manchester City 4-2, van Gaal stated: "I think we have to play our first full 90 minutes very well. The first 15 minutes against City, for instance, was not good. I do believe that we can play very well, but we didn’t play 90 minutes very well.
"We are progressing and playing more like a team what I want," he added. "I think the balance is in the team now. I spoke a lot about balance for the past three months, maybe you are sick of it, but it is like that. There has been more balance and I could select the same line-up more often because I didn’t have injuries any more. But now, we have four injuries, and two in positions where we don’t have any other players – that is difficult."
On another note about his squad, the boss retains the belief that it is too short in physical stature and suggested he analyses such details in some depth. Of the outfield players, only Marouane Fellaini, Chris Smalling, Michael Carrick and Jonny Evans are considerably more than six feet tall.
"When you see our selection, our height is not tall enough," van Gaal observed. "We have a big deficit in height. When you speak with a basketball coach, for example, one or two centimetres are very important and, in football, it is the same. When you see the statistics, a third or fourth of all the goals that a team is scoring is out of set-plays – the height is very important".
