Louis van Gaal: ‘Manchester United fans have to get behind the players’

The Old Trafford crowd vented their frustration at the substitution of striker Anthony Martial for Marouane Fellaini, and Van Gaal says he will accept criticism, as long as it is targeted at him rather than the United players.

Van Gaal made the mistake of calling the defender “Mike Smalling” while sat alongside him at a press conference in San Jose during United’s pre-season tour in July.

“I am very happy about the performance of my players and also a result that means we are top of the group”. It’s very hard to play for Manchester Utd with a lot of pressure. “I can cope with it because I have had a lot of experience in it as my life as a manager”.

Van Gaal’s saviour against Moscow was Wayne Rooney, the player who has been criticised more widely than any other by his own supporters, and the manager said he has still to decide where best to play the England forward.

Van Gaal hopes Morgan Schneiderlin will be available to face West Brom, although Matteo Darmian is suspended.

Scholes, a BT pundit for the match, said before kick-off that United’s style of play was “boring” and claimed Rooney’s return of two league goals this season was down to a lack of service. “Also, in the group, we are now at the top and we have to win the next match against Eindhoven, but the situation is much better now”, the German worldwide added.

“But we have to score more goals”.

“I want to keep being in and around the bench and coming on, hopefully even starting games”, Lingard said.

“So I’m very happy with our defensive organisation and very happy with the way we attacked because in the end we won a hard game against a hard team”. The boss refused to rule the French midfielder out of the game but admitted that we’d have to “wait and see” whether he’d be ready to play. “It’s a team now you wouldn’t want to play against because they’re tightly organised”.

The trio of former Reds will all return to Old Trafford on Saturday when the Reds host the Baggies in the Barclays Premier League and they are sure to receive a warm welcome from the fans.

However, despite the win, there was still considerable unrest among the home support, as United bolstered their chances of reaching the last 16, report the Manchester Evening News.