Van Persie lifts lid on 'confronting' Manchester United meeting

 
Sep 26, 2014 09:13:00

The Dutchman says the Red Devils held a lengthy and uncompromising inquest into Sunday's second-half collapse against newly-promoted Leicester City
Manchester United held a "confronting" hour-long inquest into their embarrassing collapse at Leicester City, Robin van Persie has revealed.

United twice led by two goals against the newly-promoted Foxes at the King Power Stadium but conceded four times in the second half to slump to a shock 5-3 loss, and have now won just one of their first six matches in all competitions.

The Red Devils' poor start is even more disappointing in light of a summer transfer spend which exceeded €190 million and brought Angel Di Maria, Radamel Falcao, Luke Shaw, Ander Herrera, Marcos Rojo and Daley Blind to Old Trafford.

And Van Persie admits the post-match analysis of Sunday's embarrassing defeat at Carrington was lengthy and uncompromising.

"It shouldn't be possible [to lose like we did]," the Dutchman told Fox Sports News. "But it still happened. We have to deal with it.

"We had a proper look at it next day. Sometimes it was a bit confronting and it was a long meeting. One hour [or] something.

"We went from there, started again this week [and have put] a couple of really good sessions in. Everyone feels ready to face West Ham."

Sam Allardyce's Hammers are the visitors at Old Trafford on Saturday and will be given confidence by the fact their opponents have lost six Premier League games at home in the last year.

The under-fire hosts have also kept just two clean sheets in their last eight league matches but Van Persie said the club's review pointed blame at the whole team for their defensive errors - not just the back three or four, depending on what system van Gaal uses.

"When you look at the defensive mistakes, it starts somewhere else," he added.

"That's where we looked at as well. It's not just the one mistake which happens. There's a mistake before the mistake and before the mistake, maybe positional wise. That's where we looked at.

"Everyone knows where we have to improve."