Louis van Gaal slates Rafael after conceding soft penalty

Van Gaal watched his new-look Man United team get beat 5-3 at Leicester (©GettyImages).

Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal is adamant that Rafael was to blame for conceding a soft penalty against Leicester City, criticising the defender for even attempting a challenge in the penalty area rather than referee Mark Clattenburg.

Leicester produced an inspired comeback to earn a shock 5-3 victory over United this afternoon, with the turning point in a topsy-turvy clash definitely coming when Rafael conceded a soft penalty after a clash with Jamie Vardy.

Rafael was barged to the floor and reacted by trying to win the ball back in the box, a decision which Van Gaal feels was a poor one despite minimal co thantact between the two players.

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No excuses offered for under-fire defender

In his post-match interview after a humbling at the King Power Stadium the Dutchman insisted: "We have too many players who want to seek for the goal. Leicester have already showed against Arsenal and Stoke that they can come back and they did it very well.

"For the first penalty it is always the referee [who you talk about] but you don't have to do that as a player.

"You know you are in the penalty area and you allow the referee to whistle if you make a challenge, I don't know if it is a penalty but we have to look at ourselves because we made such big errors as a team. 

"I cannot say that I am happy."

Huge problems defensively for a United side in transition

It's clear that United have defensive deficiencies that need to be addressed urgently after a very disappointing performance against Leicester, which somehow saw the visitors go from 3-1 up to 5-3 down thanks to a catalogue of errors at the back.

Tyler Blackett was sent off late on as Leonardo Ulloa scored with a second penalty to put the exclamation mark on a horrible second half showing from the Red Devils, who managed to concede four goals in under 20 minutes.

Van Gaal has now lost two of his first five Premier League games as United manager anc clearly still needs to find the right system to get the best out his star-studded squad, with tightening up defensively surely top of his list of priorities at this stage.