Van Nistelrooy looks to adapt tactics

Ruud van Nistelrooy believes Manchester United may have to take the direct route if they are to overcome the safety-first tactics of Barclays Premiership opponents this term.

After struggling to overcome Aston Villa in their first home game of the season, United were stopped in their tracks completely by improving Manchester City on Saturday.

Like Villa before them, Stuart Pearce’s side built their performance around secure defending, refusing to commit too many men forward even after Van Nistelrooy had put the hosts in front just before the break.

By the time Joey Barton equalised, much of the fire had gone out of United’s attack and, with similar tactics expected of Blackburn when Mark Hughes returns to Old Trafford in a fortnight.

Van Nistelrooy thinks the Red Devils need to ditch a percentage of the passing game in an effort to cause their opponents greater problems.

“We played too many square balls after half-time on Saturday, maybe sometimes we need to be a bit more direct,” Van Nistelrooy told MUTV.

“We caused City a few problems when we got the ball straight to the forwards and perhaps we should have done it a bit more.”

The result saw United slip an ominous five points adrift of champions Chelsea.

Alex Ferguson’s men do have a match in hand and these are early days yet, but no-one at Old Trafford needs reminding of the six home draws they suffered last term which did such damage to their hopes of reclaiming the Premiership title. And Van Nistelrooy knows the scenario cannot be repeated again.

“We cannot afford too many more games like that because we need to win our home games,” he said.

“We don’t want to give Chelsea too much of a lead but on the positive side, despite the disappointing result on Saturday, we are still looking fairly solid and that should give us a good feeling going into the games ahead.”

United have little time to dwell on the weekend setback as they fly out to Spain tomorrow for the Champions League opener against Villarreal, before returning to face Liverpool at Anfield on Sunday.

Although Diego Forlan is hoping to prove a point against his old club, Villarreal’s hopes have been hit by the likely absence of star man Juan Roman Riquelme with an ankle injury picked up against Seville at the weekend.

Ferguson has earmarked the encounter as the hardest one his side will face in a group which also contains Benfica and Lille, but in Van Nistelrooy the Scot knows he has a man who can strike terror in the heart of Europe’s finest defences.

Not only has the prolific 29-year-old scored 37 times in just 41 European outings for the Red Devils, his goal against City was his fifth this season already and 131st overall, taking him into the all-time United top 10 scoring charts.

“It has been a good start to the season in that respect,” he said. “It is important to score. As a striker it gives you a good feeling.

“I have also scored for Holland, so I have something to build on and hopefully I can continue that in the future.”