Robin van Persie may lose Manchester United place after dip in belief

Posted Saturday, November 29, 2014 by theguardian.com

· Striker touched the ball only 13 times during 2-1 win at Arsenal
· Louis van Gaal: 'It's a question of confidence'
· James Wilson may replace Van Persie though Falcao is fit

Manchester United's Robin van Persie, who may miss out against Hull City, looked happy enough in training on Friday.

Robin van Persie faces an anxious wait to discover if he has lost his Manchester United place after Louis van Gaal broke with his usual policy of not discussing the striker's deterioration to accept his player was "very bad" in their last game and was suffering from his first sustained spell of damaged confidence since joining the club.

Van Persie, the outstanding footballer in the Premier League two seasons ago, managed only 13 touches of the ball when United won 2-1 against his former club, Arsenal, last Saturday, leading to Van Gaal substituting him after 75 minutes.

Radamael Falcao's return from injury puts Van Persie's place under pressure for Saturday's game at home to Hull City but the Colombian has not played for five weeks and it is James Wilson, an 18-year-old "knocking on the door", who is more prominently in Van Gaal's thoughts. "We shall see tomorrow," Van Gaal said to the question of whether he would be confident enough to start the teenager. "You shall see if I give him that confidence."

Van Gaal has previously excused himself from discussing Van Persie by saying it is not his policy to talk about the form of individual players. On this occasion, there was no such protection for the striker on the back of his peripheral performance against Arsenal, when the 31-year-old had the fewest number of touches in any match for over 10 years by a United player who has been on the pitch for at least 75 minutes. No other top division player, including goalkeepers, has had so few touches in a game this season.

"I have a surprise for you," Van Gaal said. "I had a striker, an international striker, Mario Gomez, who touched the ball nine times in matches at Bayern Munich in my time. But I do think 13 is [too] few for a striker. You can count his touches of the ball.

"The more important thing is how he is playing. It was a very bad game from him and that is why I changed him. When I change a player it is not because he is the best player on the pitch, or then I would be doing something wrong. When I change players it is normally because they are doing something not good in their performance."

Van Gaal did go on to point out Van Persie was bound to be isolated in a game Arsenal dominated until half-time. "When you pick up this match it is easy to put the question. Thirteen touches of the ball? Yeah, OK... but strikers do not often touch the ball, that is their profession." The manager's suspicion, however, is Van Persie has lost self-belief after not being able to maintain the prodigious level of performance that helped United to the championship in Sir Alex Ferguson's final season.

"It's a question of confidence, maybe a question of scoring a wonderful goal at the right moment," Van Gaal said. "It can be tomorrow. You know how strikers are: they have to score goals. They feel like that; it's not that I'm asking that. I have said to them: 'You have to be at an attacking point, you have to help our team come and search for space – for me, it is not important who is scoring.'"

The win against Arsenal elevated Van Gaal's team to fourth position but the manager does not believe it was a turning point for his first season. "I don't think so," he said. "The performance was not the performance, I think, that shall give us a lot of confidence. The performance was not the performance I had in mind but the fighting spirit was unbelievable. We didn't perform well and we have to improve that. When we win with a good performance it will give us much more confidence than a good result against Arsenal."

Van Gaal, confirming that Luke Shaw will be out with ankle ligament damage for "a few weeks", hopes Marcos Rojo can return to his squad against Hull and he went on to talk about what he perceived as a lack of leadership in his team.

"At this moment it is difficult to say one is the leader. But I don't think leaders are so important. I have not experienced a lot of leaders in my teams, not in Bayern Munich, not in Barcelona, not in Ajax. At Ajax, I had [Danny] Blind and later Rijkaard. At Barcelona, I made Guardiola captain. At Bayern Munich, I had Philipp Lahm and Schweinsteiger. It is not so easy, leadership, and you can be a leader the wrong way. So it's not so important."

That was still a slightly strange admission given that he made Van Persie his captain during Holland's run to the World Cup semi-finals. Yet the message here was Van Persie could no longer consider himself an automatic starter, especially now Falcao is nearing full fitness. "Every player in my selection has to fight for his position," Van Gaal said, adding that he hoped Falcao could re-establish himself as one of the top strikers, on the basis "we have him on loan because of that".