Football
Richard Jolly, ESPN.com writer 10y

Angel Di Maria can improve after first Manchester United goal - Van Gaal

MANCHESTER -- Louis van Gaal hailed Angel Di Maria after scoring on his Old Trafford debut in Manchester United's 4-0 victory over QPR, but insists his record signing could do even better in future.

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The Argentina international opened his United account after his 59.7 million-pound move from Real Madrid by scoring the first goal in Sunday's Premier League win -- the first of the Red Devils' 2014-15 campaign.

Di Maria also played a part in the other three goals as Ander Herrera, Wayne Rooney and Juan Mata joined him on the scoresheet, but Van Gaal -- who has challenged United to top the Premier League goalscoring charts -- identified areas of improvement for the 26-year-old.

"When you prepare three goals and make the first goal by yourself then you cannot play bad but he had a lot of unnecessary losses [of possession] so we can do better, even Angel Di Maria," he told a postmatch news conference.

"Can you do it better when you prepare three goals and make one? It is nearly impossible but I am analysing the game and I see things we can improve as a team."

Di Maria came off in the closing minutes after appearing to suffer from cramp, but Van Gaal shrugged off fears the British record signing is injured.

"Di Maria is all right. Di Maria has never played 90 minutes until now in his preseason and season," he added. "He has cramp and normally you have to play 90 minutes without cramp but that is also a positive signal. He gave everything."

At one stage, the majority of the United players on the pitch were Spanish speakers -- with Di Maria joined by Herrera, Mata, David De Gea and Marcos Rojo -- but Van Gaal vowed they will all speak English by 2015 after ordering them to take language lessons.

"Already all the Spanish players have lessons in English," he said. "We have started two weeks [ago] and the language is English. I can speak Spanish so it is better to communicate sometimes on the pitch in Spanish but they shall learn English within one year, I promise."

Di Maria struck his first United goal from a free kick wide on the right, and told Sky Sports after the game that it was a deliberate attempt to score.

"I've been practising this during the week and done that in training so it wasn't a surprise," he said.

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