Louis van Gaal admitted he was stunned to find 17 Manchester United players tuning in to watch El Clasico at the team hotel on Saturday evening.

The Manchester United manager and his squad were staying at the Lowry when he stumbled across 17 of his 18 players watching the titanic battle between Real Madrid and Barcelona. Real won 3-1 at the Bernabeu.

Van Gaal said: 'We went to the Lowry, we had a screen so I could watch the second half and 17 players of 18 were there. I have never experienced that before. We have a lot of Spaniards!

Manchester United's whole team celebrates their goal against Chelsea - and they had all been together the previous night to watch Real Madrid beat Barcelona in La Liga

Manager Louis van Gaal admits he was shocked to find so many of his players watching El Clasico

Van Gaal said the players wanted to watch because of the quality of the game, which Real won 3-1

‘I won’t tell you which one wasn’t there. It was the quality of the game - Real Madrid vs Barcelona.

'I told the players, "You have seen what they have done because for example, Barcelona under Gerardo Martino pressed from the front, but under Luis Enrique it is from behind".

'Real Madrid pressed from behind, they drop in and they were very compact. After Real scored the second, the match was over because Barcelona don’t keep compact.’

Luis Suarez made an immediate impact when he set up Neymar's opening goal but Real roared back through a Cristiano Ronaldo penalty, Pepe and Karim Benzema.

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United earned a 1-1 draw with Chelsea on Sunday, Robin van Persie scoring the late equaliser