Manchester United's David De Gea revealed the halftime team news after the Red Devils went a man down after Casemiro's red card against Southampton on Sunday.
The Red Devils had to improvise after Casemiro got sent off in the 32nd minute of the encounter. The Brazilian's tackle against Carlos Alcaraz was deemed to have been too aggressive and had hidden motives; although initially booked with a yellow card, VAR had to call referee Anthony Taylor to reconsider his decision and issued the 31-year-old a red card instead.
David De Gea, who played a vital role in keeping the score at 0-0, explained the team's halftime talk on how to proceed with the game ahead of the second half. He stressed that he and his teammates pride themselves on the fact that they could still pick up all three points from the Sunday afternoon stalemate.
"Of course, that's what we said at halftime," De Gea told MUTV when asked if the players thought they could win the game with 10 men. "We knew it, so come on, defend well, and we'll create some chances on the counter-attack."
"It was like this: we hit the post, we had some good chances, but like I say, it's always tough to play that long with one less player." "Let's keep going; we have some big games coming, and let's refocus."
"He [Theo Walcott] had a couple of big chances, and I helped the team with some saves." "It's good to keep a clean sheet in a difficult game, of course, but I think the whole team defended really, really well," he explained.
With the congested schedule of fixtures ahead of them, David De Gea explained that his teammate, Casemiro, was unlucky to have been red carded but praised the team spirit. He claimed Casemiro's impact will be missed but there are players in the squad who will readily step up in his absence.
"The tackle was a normal tackle,” said United's No. 1. "But then he touched the ball, and the ball made his leg go a little higher, and he hit the player of Southampton." He was very unlucky.
“We suffered a bit. To play for 70 minutes with 10 players is tough. But like I say, we showed good team spirit, we kept trying till the end, and we nearly scored a goal.”
“Of course, it is tough to miss Case for four games,” admitted the Spanish goalkeeper. "
“It is a lot." But we have a big squad. Everyone is ready to play. Again, the players from the bench did an amazing job today. So, everyone is ready. Everyone who is set to play in that [midfield] position is going to play well. But of course, he is going to be a huge miss for us," he explained.
He went on to stress that the players are dealing with the crazy schedule of fixtures and that they will continue to give their all in each game that follows.
"It is crazy the amount of games we are playing," he said.
"It is tough. It looks simple, but it is very tough to play every two or three days. Players are running a lot. We don’t have much time to recover. But everyone is trying their best. "You can see in every game we fight and we try our best."
“Of course, some games like today, you miss one player, players are going to get tired, and you can drop some points."
“But let’s keep going; we have two more big games next week."
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