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Louis van Gaal is settling in well at Manchester United and establishing the type of control which Sir Alex Ferguson obsessed about. Control over players, officials and over the club where he wants to make it clear who is boss.

I was supposed to interview Luke Shaw on Saturday after United’s 3-2 win against AS Roma in Denver. The well built young United full-back took an hour in the dressing room after the game and was the last player out – which meant our time for an interview was compromised. Shaw started talking and was friendly until Darren Fletcher told him that he’d better get on the team bus. Immediately.

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The coach didn’t want to be kept waiting – he did enough of that in the Los Angeles traffic last week – and it’s quite right that the boss is the most important man at a football club, the biggest personality, the man with the charisma and intelligence to engage with all types of people from senior directors to football’s authorities, from 19-year-old millionaire footballers to journalists to hardened senior players who sometimes need to be told.

Van Gaal is a hard taskmaster, but he’s impressing. At 10pm the night before the Roma game, he had all of his players in a meeting room studying the likely formation and tactics of his opponents. For a friendly.

There’s an element of public relations to United’s US tour as they continue to court the growing US football market which is rich in sponsors and consumers who can afford to pay full price for tickets and merchandise rather than those who in some United-strong economies who buy counterfeit merchandise.

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Van Gaal will be on message with smiley face and glad hands for the suits. He’s not stupid, he knows that United’s commercial success is key for the club’s strategy, that money from sponsors pays his players. But he’s also prepared to fight his corner, to speak his mind if he’s not happy about too many commercial commitments, too much travel, poor pitches and games that kick-off in the hottest part of the day at the height of the north American summer. He is a football man and has football players in mind. He rightly thinks that football comes first and everything else follows. United wouldn’t be able to continue attracting the same level of sponsorship if they continued to finish seventh as they did last season.

And while the stream of enthusiasm for United’s Dutch coach is at risk of turning into a flood before the season has even started, it should be noted that David Moyes made a positive first impression a year ago. The players genuinely thought that things were starting well on the 2013 pre-season tour of Asia, that they were ready to continue at the same level post Sir Alex Ferguson. And then reality struck with two defeats and a draw from games against Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool in their opening five matches.

“We never recovered from that,” said Nemanja Vidic in a soon to be published interview in United We Stand. United’s confidence was rocked and Moyes rightly cursed the tough start he’d been given.

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Van Gaal has got a far easier start which contrasts completely with a year ago, but judgements will come after his United side have played major rivals in the autumn. The 63-year-old has an obsessive focus and has told players and staff that he wants to win the league this season. He has to aim high for it’s no good saying: “We’re going for fourth”, but United fans will be understanding if they don’t.

A significant improvement is what’s required and a return to the Champions League football.

Van Gaal also needs time to get used to his new system (a variation on 3-5-2) which the Red Devils have never played before.

The pre-season games are a good test of that – none more so than this Saturday when United play Champions League winners Real Madrid in Michigan.

All 109,000 tickets for that game sold out in a couple of hours.

It isn’t called the United States for nothing.