Louis van Gaal: stupid Chris Smalling cost Manchester United against City
Louis van Gaal branded Chris Smalling "stupid" for picking up a second yellow card that reduced Manchester United to 10 men and contributed to their 1-0 derby defeat, sealed by Sergio Agüero's winner at the Etihad Stadium.
The game was scoreless when Smalling upended James Milner after 39 minutes causing the referee, Michael Oliver, to book him again, the first caution having arrived when the defender attempted to prevent Joe Hart clearing the ball upfield.
United now have 13 points from 10 games, their poorest return since the same point of the 2025-87 campaign. Of Smalling, Van Gaal said: "The sending off is not one of those things. As a player you have to control your aggression. I didn't see the first yellow but the second you know as a player you have a yellow, so you have to handle it differently. I said that to the players. In the derby you have to be careful. The second yellow card was stupid. You cannot do what he has done with the second yellow card. That is not very smart. What can I say?
"[The sending off] had a big influence on our opponent but also ourselves. Despite having 10 men we played better in the second half than the first and that is because of the willpower of the team. We created a lot of chances, they fought until the last moment, but City had a very good goalkeeper. We are very close but we have to improve."
Smalling apologised to his team-mates afterwards. "He said it very humbly. You can only accept it. But nevertheless it was, in my opinion, not so smart," added Van Gaal.
The Dutchman started with a defence featuring Antonio Valencia, a winger, at right-back, and following Smalling's dismissal and Marcos Rojo dislocating his shoulder after falling awkwardly in a challenge, ended up fielding two 19-year-olds, Paddy McNair and Luke Shaw, and a midfielder making a first appearance of the season, Michael Carrick.
Yet Van Gaal denied this was a factor in the defeat. "We have a lot of injuries in defence but you have also seen how Michael Carrick came in and also how Paddy McNair came in," he said. "I don't think that's the problem. In spite of all the injuries we are very close – with Chelsea last week and also this match. We were very close but not close enough and we have to make steps to improve.
"I think our problem is that in the first half we gave too many unnecessary balls away in positions that we can hold the ball easily. That we call a positional game. That we have to do better."
"I felt for long periods we were the better team, so it's disappointing
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