lvg: We're the best

Bullish Van Gaal believes that he has turned a corner and can now field his strongest team

Paul Hyland

LOUIS van Gaal has has shrugged aside a growing band of critics and claimed that Manchester United's form over the last 20 games makes them the best in the Premier League

"As you know, when you see the score of the last 19 or 20 matches, we are the best team in the league," he said.

After a stuttering start to the season, Manchester United are now on a run of 19 games with just one defeat and Van Gaal believes that familiarity has helped change results.

"I think only the difference is now the players know and have experience of playing in the system with my philosophy.

"We also shouldn't forget a lot of my players in the first match were not there."

"Rojo wasn't there, Blind was not there, Di Maria was not there, maybe another player, Shaw was not playing for example. A lot of players didn't play so when I see the lineup against Swansea there is a lot of differences -- it's another match."

Van Gaal believes that he is close to the point where he can move on from those injury problems and finish the season strongly.

STAGE

"We are very close to that stage. In the first four months I started only to select from out of the fit players and as you know, I always had 10 or 11 players injured.

"Now, the last month, I only have one or two players and now only Michael Carrick is injured so that's a big difference.

"That's also because of the way of training, also the players had to adapt to the way of training, and now that's complete. That's the big difference with the beginning of the season.

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