Louis van Gaal admits he finds Manchester United games boring

Numerous fans had already left the stadium by the time Rooney spared his team from an unwanted replay.

According to Paul Scholes, the Manchester United players and manager Louis van Gaal look bored.

“You’ve just seen 90 minutes of boring, defensive…I’ve tried to defend this team now for the last two or three weeks, it’s getting more and more hard to do it because every time you come to Old Trafford this is what you see; negative football”.

“You have to be happy as a fan of Manchester United that we are in the next round and that we have won two matches in a row”. “But we are in the next round”.

United sit fifth on the Premier League table but a recent run of eight matches without a win, in all competitions, heaped vast pressure on the Dutchman prior to labouring victories over Swansea City (2-1 in the league) and Sheffield United (1-0 in the FA Cup).

United did not register a shot on target against the League One side until the 69th minute and were booed off at the break. How many stadiums were like ours full? “We have to see if [other] players are still overloaded or not”.

The former Bayern Munich manager is never willing to give an inch no matter how poorly his team played, or what woeful football his players are producing every week for the club since the start of the season. “I think that’s the way he likes to play football”.

“We have to do it [create chances] better than this match of course”, said the United boss. It seems some United fans may be too… “The players were frustrated and the fans were frustrated”, he added.

Van Gaal believes a desire to beat the traffic was one of the determining factors that led to many supporters leaving Saturday’s FA Cup third-round tie early, rather than their frustration at the quality of performance. I don’t take risks and, because of that, we have a very young bench.

“I believe in communication during the week, during the preparation and I believe in my players who have to perform”.

React to Paul Scholes? Because we are defending very well, you are asking this question.

Van Gaal also insisted the fans were right to voice discontent at the club’s laboured performances.