Paul Scholes and Roy Keane are among the former Manchester United players to

On the top floor of the St Regis Hotel in San Francisco last July, the great and the good of FC Barcelona were gathered for a press conference to launch a collaboration with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. One of the club's most experienced officials, however, just wanted to talk about Louis van Gaal.

'The thing with Louis is that some players don't always realise just how good he is for them until he has gone,' he said. 'That is how it was at Barcelona, especially with some of the Spanish players.

'Some players would always moan about him when he was here; about his training and about his playing style and his manner.

'Off course his work is very structured; it's always his way.

Louis van Gaal watched his side draw 0-0 with PSV Eindhoven at Old Trafford on Wednesday night

'But talk to those players now – the ones who stayed with him and won things – and ask how many of them will criticise him.

'You will find that none of them will.'

At Manchester United these words will resonate. Van Gaal has recently been holding criticism of his team's style – their cloying, rigid football – at bay by carving out narrow victories in the Barclays Premier League.

As odd as it sounds, the team booed off by their own supporters after Wednesday night's stupefying Champions League draw with PSV Eindhoven will be top of their domestic competition if they beat Leicester City on Saturday.

Nevertheless, dissent is once again in the air at Old Trafford. In the stands and, to some degree, in the dressing room. At many clubs, a healthy Premier League position for a team undergoing renewal would be seen as satisfactory. With a third of the season gone, it could even be interpreted as a statement of intent, a portent for better times.

At United, though, the league table will not be allowed to mask issues with the quality of the football, the lack of entertainment.

As such Van Gaal – a man who has heard all this before at previous cubs – is under pressure from died in the wool, old-school supporters who watch his team and wonder why its attacking players don't run with the ball, ask why so many passes go backwards and not forwards and worry over what on earth has happened to Wayne Rooney.

There is no joy at Old Trafford this season, only some rather begrudging appreciation of what amounts to a clear upturn in results in the Premier League. Just like Van Gaal's days at Barcelona, you don't have to listen too hard to hear the grumbles.

Rewind only three weeks, for example, and consider the players' lounge chatter in the wake of United's rather laboured 2-0 defeat of Tony Pulis' West Bromwich Albion team.

'Some of the United players were quite open about it,' said a source at the midlands club.

'They were talking to our lads, worrying about the football, the training, the repetition of the drills.

'It wasn't open hostility towards the manager. They just said they sometimes find the training boring and the playing style restrictive.

'They just want some more variety, the chance to express themselves more. The Van Gaal way of playing football is not their natural way.'

Manchester United fans have grown frustrated with the way the team have been playing recently

There, in just a few sentences, are the accusations that have followed Van Gaal throughout parts of his career, the reasons why many United followers – and indeed some players – don't know whether to thank him for taking them back to the top or blame him for the current absence of thrills on match day.

Early on at Ajax, Barcelona, the Dutch national team and Bayern Munich, the 64-year-old was similarly criticised for an obsessive and methodical approach to training and an attitude to competitive play that his detractors believe discourages risk and intuitive creativity.

Sometimes at Ajax, for example, Van Gaal was accused of encouraging his players to play the ball backwards. 'Clockwork Orange', his critics called it. In the wake of Wednesday's barren night against PSV, meanwhile, someone compared watching United to an evening viewing luggage travel by on an airport baggage carousel. Round and round and round….

Some Manchester United players are understood to have described the training as repetitive

At Barcelona, Van Gaal thought the great Brazilian RIvaldo – who he shunted out to the left wing before selling him – dribbled too much. In Europe this week, United's record signing Angel di Maria – so thrilling with the ball at his feet when at Real Madrid – scored twice for his new club PSG.

On the training field Van Gaal has always been a slave to repetition, nothing left to chance. On his office wall at Ajax a sign read: 'Quality is the Exclusion of Co-incidence'.

United, therefore, should not be surprised. This is the coach they hired.

'He is an interesting character,' said former United centre forward Ruud van Nistelrooy.

'He is the most structured manager that I worked with. He managed me for the national team.

'He has absolutely everything planned. His training sessions focus on the team and each individual knows exactly what he has to do for the team.

When Van Gaal was manager of Barcelona he thought that Rivaldo dribbled too much - and sold him

Former Manchester United striker Ruud van Nistelrooy described Van Gaal as 'the most structured manager that I worked with'

'It can be repetitive as you do the same things every day. But you have to be part of the vision, get on with it.

'Look at Angel di Maria, for example. He was a massive transfer but he didn't work in the vision of Van Gaal as he does things nobody expects and he is unpredictable.

'Van Gaal wants a machine. But I think he will bring success.'

This week at Old Trafford, they mourned the 10th anniversary of the passing of George Best. The iconic free spirit, Best was once the reason United coaches introduced two-touch games in training. Without them, Best would have kept the ball all day.

'Why should people pay £50 a ticket to watch two teams each playing one striker up front?' Best told this newspaper in his final interview before his death.

'It's crazy. The onus is on the managers to send out an attacking formation and to tell their players to be bold.'

Former United midfielder Paul Scholes was left decidedly unimpressed by his old team's draw with PSV

Best was never a manager, of course. Neither, yet, has been Paul Scholes.

Scholes, another former United player, has been consistently vocal in his criticism of the way Van Gaal's team has played. On Wednesday night, he pitched in again and was joined by former United captain Roy Keane.

'I keep saying it's boring, I know,' said Scholes.

'Attacking wise they don' look a threat, don't look good enough.

'I think he [Van Gaal] sets the team up to be defensive.'

Interestingly, Scholes' latter concerns are echoed privately by some of the club's senior players who feel as though their manager's tactics are rewiring an attacking DNA that has been an intrinsic part of life at Old Trafford for many years.

This, it should be said, is not idle chat from fringe players disgruntled at being excluded from the team. Rather it is from one or two key senior players, footballers who may be sitting at the top of the Premier League by Saturday night.

It is a wholly peculiar situation, even if it is one that Van Nistelrooy believes will unravel and improve over time.

'After the gaffer Sir Alex Ferguson retired, the club needed a strong leader and I think they have that now,' he said.

United striker Wayne Rooney and Memphis Depay struggle to break down PSV on Wednesday

'He will get them back to winning the Premier League. It is a process although now I'm starting to sound like him.

'He wants to get the basic organisation right and then in time I think the flair and creative expression will come.

'Yeah, it is different for the fans. I understand that.

'When I think of United, I think of that electric team, with David Beckham on one wing, Ryan Giggs on the other, Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke in the penalty area, Paul Scholes arriving onto crosses and Roy Keane holding in midfield.

'In my head, I see attack after attack. But this modern United would get beat playing that way and Van Gaal knows that.

'He is maximising the most from his squad by playing this way.

'I don't think United have the best squad in the league but they could win it. He uses their strengths and it leads to results.

'The next stage is that the confidence grows and that will lead to greater quality.'

Van Nistelrooy remembers an attacking Manchester United team with David Beckham and Ryan Giggs on the flanks and Andy Cole in the middle and Roy Keane in midfield

An extremely cogent piece of analysis by Van Nistelrooy, the great forward may be right. In most of Van Gaal's previous postings, the quality of the football did improve with the passing of time.

However, at places like Ajax and Bayern Munich, for example, improvement in the football came quicker than this. At Old Trafford, many supporters feel they have been patient enough.

Van Nistelrooy's interpretation does points to a key factor in the evolution of United under Van Gaal and perhaps the day that the United manager realised that things really had to change came when his team lost to Saturday's opponents 5-3 at the King Power Stadium last September.

A thrilling, throwback game of football, it ultimately embarrassed Van Gaal and it is not a co-incidence that six of the players who started that game are no longer at the club. On that day, Van Gaal started with three centre forwards in his line-up – Rooney, Robin van Persie and Radamel Falcao – as well as Di Maria.

Saturday's team will be different in both personnel and identity. If that line-up pointed towards idealism then a more familiar Van Gaal pragmatism has subsequently held sway.

'It is hard to beat us and a coach can never complain about that,' said Van Gaal recently.

Bastian Schweinsteiger (right) has been a good signing but much success is down to lack of goals conceded

Certainly United were physically ill-equipped to cope last season and Van Gaal's subsequent work in the transfer market has rectified that as has the remarkable improvement he has brought about in players like defender Chris Smalling.

The purchase of imposing players such as Matteo Darmian, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Morgan Schneiderlin has given United a much more resolute look and much of their progress this season has been built on the fact that they do not concede many goals.

So far this season, United have conceded nine league goals compared with 15 at the same stage last season. If that improvement is not recognised by the Stretford Enders who have taken to shouting 'attack, attack, attack' on match day then it perhaps should be. It is 50 per cent of the battle after all.

United's meagre goal output, however, has not improved. Van Gaal's team have scored 19 times so far in the league, which is nine fewer than Saturday's opponents, the fewest out of the top seven teams and three fewer than at this stage last year.

Last season in itself was a fallow one and regular United observers and indeed people inside the club remain bemused as to why Van Gaal and chief executive Ed Woodward left the club with only one recognised and senior striker – Rooney – once the summer transfer business was done.

As one United official put it when asked why Adnan Januzaj was suddenly allowed to leave on loan at the end of August: 'You had better the ask the manager. It can be very difficult to work him out.'

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At the heart of United's current attacking issues lies Rooney. Short of form and confidence – not to mention goals – the 30-year-old has borne the brunt of much of the criticism that has come United's way this season.

Had Sir Alex Ferguson still been manager of the club, Rooney would have been sold last summer. Ferguson said so privately only last spring.

Former team-mate Keane, meanwhile, held little in reserve when criticising Rooney's lifestyle this week, something – it should be pointed out – he actually knows little about.

Rooney's from in front of goal has been a concern for United this season

Had Sir Alex Ferguson still been in charge then Rooney would have been sold last summer

'I always question certain players and what are they doing off the field,' said Keane.

'Last week I saw Wayne slapping a wrestler on TV and I'm thinking: "Why is he getting involved in all that nonsense?"

'There's no benefit to him. I'd have a look at that side of it.'

Van Gaal remains loyal to a player that many United supporters – rightly or wrongly – believe slows much of their team's attacking play down to pedestrian levels.

Interestingly, the United manager has a history of jettisoning senior players, believing that a younger squad – with an optimum number of 23 players – is capable of absorbing his methods and his instructions more readily, more eagerly.

But in his captain, Van Gaal sees a mirror of himself in some ways, Rooney's understanding of the collective being so valuable to his coach. So, for now, Rooney will continue to play, to search for form, while other rather more unpredictable players sweat on places.

We should not be surprised that young Memphis Depay is not featuring regularly. United's players have been disappointed in his attitude since his arrival from PSV. The altogether more impressive Frenchman Anthony Martial, meanwhile, will be used a little more sparingly than has so far been the case as Van Gaal tries to shepherd the 19-year-old through the winter.

Manchester United's players are understood to be disappointed with Memphis' attitude this season

With Van Gaal not wholly trusting of players like the Spaniard Ander Herrera, the holes in United's attacking resources are clear, no wonder then that the coach talked up his admiration for Cristiano Ronaldo last weekend.

Ronaldo, we now know, wishes to leave Real Madrid next summer. Would he wish to join a team that so often seems to play with the brakes on, though? Equally, would Van Gaal's actual Madrid target Gareth Bale? It is a moot point.

Ronaldo is understood to be keen to leave Real Madrid this summer - will he return to Manchester United?

That, however, is an issue for next summer and next season, a campaign we believe will be Van Gaal's last in the professional game.

In six games' time, he will be halfway through his expected tenure at Old Trafford. It will not concern him at all that the jury is still out. Confidence has never been an issue with the United manager.

Recently he was reminded that his second spell as coach of Holland was characterised by criticism until, when it mattered, he delivered them an outstanding World Cup in Brazil two summers ago.

'Maybe it can happen again,' he smiled. 'That would be nice.'

At United, though, the murmurs will not die down until the football improves.

Recently former Barcelona playmaker Xavi reflected on his time with Van Gaal at the Nou Camp.

'After two days of training with him, I thought: "Who is this idiot?" said Xavi. 'After a week, I changed my mind.'