Van der Sar holds his hands up
Goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar has accepted the blame for Middlesbrough’s opener in Manchester United’s Riverside horror show on Saturday.
The giant Dutchman has performed superbly since arriving at Old Trafford from Fulham in a £2m (€2.9m) deal this summer, making a string of key saves.
But the 34-year-old admitted he blundered in his attempts to keep out Gaizka Mendieta’s long-range strike just two minutes into the 4-1 hammering, a mistake which set the tone for a truly awful performance.
“The ball swirled a little but I should have saved it,” said Van der Sar.
“That is not a good situation to start with and it all started to go wrong from that goal.”
United were back in training yesterday, with Alex Ferguson determined to force a positive response from his team in a week that sees them tackle Lille in a vital Champions League clash before they entertain runaway Barclays Premiership leaders Chelsea at Old Trafford on Sunday.
Ferguson has already stated defensive mistakes were responsible for what would have been United’s worst league defeat since 1999 had it not been for Cristiano Ronaldo’s injury-time consolation.
But, despite being badly out of form, any talk of Rio Ferdinand being dropped seems wide of the mark, mainly due to the injury crisis gripping the Old Trafford camp.
Ferdinand could even end up as skipper in Paris on Wednesday as Roy Keane, Ryan Giggs and Gary Neville are all injured, while Paul Scholes, who led the visitors on Saturday, is suspended.
Although he has not been at Old Trafford long, Van der Sar knows far more is expected of United than they produced at the weekend and the ashen looks on the faces of the players as they began their long journey home told its own story.
“It hurts quite a lot,” he said.
“It is a team game but we made a lot of individual errors and that cost us dearly.
“There is not much we can say, and I don’t have to tell you what the manager was like after the game. It is quite obvious how he and the players feel.
“We are not in the greatest spirit at the moment but we have to analyse what went wrong and somehow start to focus on Wednesday’s game against Lille.
“Hopefully we can pick up something from that game which we can take into the Chelsea match.”
