Morgan Schneiderlin feels Manchester United are starting to silence the doubters who complained about their style of play earlier this season.

Four days after moving to the top of the Premier League with victory over Sunderland, United recorded their first Champions League win of the season, coming from behind to beat Wolfsburg via goals from Juan Mata and Chris Smalling.

Despite their strong start, United have had their critics. Former players including Gary Neville and Paul Parker have criticised their style of play, with Neville saying Louis van Gaal’s team played at a slow tempo.

“I do feel we are improving,” said Schneiderlin. “At the start of the season people were talking about good results and not very good performances. In the last few weeks I don’t hear this any more, they don’t complain about the style of play or anything and that is because we have improved.

“We can see that on the training pitch and we can see that in the games. We are much better on the ball, we are doing better things and something we play is very high quality football. But there are still some things we can improve.”

United made the worst possible start on Wednesday when they went behind in the fourth minute after Antonio Valencia played Daniel Caligiuri onside and he slotted the ball past David de Gea. But Juan Mata won and converted a penalty to equalise before then setting up Chris Smalling for the winner with a majestic flick.

Old Trafford was a nervy place in the dying stages as Wolfsburg pushed for an equaliser. Andre Schurrle and Ricardo Rodríguez came close to scoring and Smalling admitted the final part of the match was not an enjoyable one.

“I think we made it difficult for ourselves and we could probably learn to manage and control games a little bit better in those last 10 minutes,” the defender said. “If you drop 10 yards deeper you invite that pressure. We held on and we deserved the three points.

“It was a great feeling [to score] and, with Juan, you never know what he’s going to do with those tricks and flicks. He does them every day in training. You just have to gamble.”

Van Gaal said Smalling’s goal would give the player more confidence going forward. “The way he scored the goal was outstanding, especially for a defender and especially for him because he is not doing that so much. Now he has the confidence to do that. I’m very pleased with his performance.”

Not everyone was impressed by Smalling’s finish, though. The Wolfsburg coach Dieter Hecking said after the game: “I thought their second goal was unlucky – as we say in Germany, a ‘shit goal’ – but then we were on top again and really could and perhaps should have scored again.

“In the 84th minute there was a foul on Julian Draxler that really should have been another yellow card [for Schneiderlin], so once again we just lacked that bit of luck at the end. But I’m optimistic we can build on this strong performance.”