Louis van Gaal went on the attack at his pre-FA Cup press conference when asked to clarify whether he had offered to resign after last weekend’s home defeat by Southampton, before admitting that a similar result in Friday night’s tie at Derby County could get him the sack. “We cannot lose to a Championship club,” he said.

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Over the resignation issue the Manchester United manager claimed he was being questioned about his future in a disrespectful way and complained his treatment by the media had been “awful and horrible” but perhaps significantly he did not offer a direct answer.

“I don’t think I have mentioned that ever,” Van Gaal said. “You make your own stories and I am concerned that people believe what you write. This is the third time I am sacked and I am still sitting here. You write all these stories and then I have to answer questions about them. I am not doing that, it is awful and horrible.”

That may be how the Dutch manager feels, though there is a distinction between offering to resign and being sacked, one that Van Gaal seems to be trying to blur. And it remains true that the first person to mention the possibility of resigning, or walking away before waiting to be sacked, was Van Gaal himself at the Britannia Stadium after the Boxing Day defeat by Stoke.

The manager who now says he never mentioned the subject of resignation said at the end of December: “I can quit by myself.” A slight upturn in results in the new year put the matter on hold but a manager of Van Gaal’s immense experience ought to know that, if you place such a comment on public record, it will naturally resurface should performances take a turn for the worse.

Van Gaal conceded the fourth-round Cup tie at Derby had become a game he could not afford to lose. “Maybe then you will have written the truth [about him being sacked] because sometimes it happens. I cannot lose any more, because if I do then I am condemned to being sacked for a fourth time.”

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The United manager accepted performances had dipped, though he cited injuries as a contributory factor to the side dropping out of the top four, and agreed that fans had a right to make their feelings heard after the manner of the last defeat.

“It is always like that when you lose a game, especially in the last minute,” he said. “If you play badly and win you are not so fed up but you can also play well and lose, as we did at Chelsea last year, and then you are more fed up than ever.”

Although some United supporters at the end of the Southampton game looked as if they could not possibly be more fed up, they should brace themselves. Van Gaal has reiterated his intention to see out his three-year contract. “Everybody knows I have signed here for three years. I don’t answer any more questions about that because you are making your own stories but I have always said that it is not one game but a process. I want to continue until the end. I know that the results have not been as good as expected but we are all professionals here. It is your duty as a manager and a player to cope with the criticism and stand up again. We are only at halfway – there is still time to improve.”