Louis van Gaal has come under plenty of criticism following Manchester United failing to score in the last three games, drawing 0-0 with Manchester City, Middlesbrough and Crystal Palace.

The manager has acknowledged that he is obviously eager to see us score more goals and that they are working on the attack.

We try to do that but I think the rhythm of the game in the Premier League is more difficult to develop that. You can see it every week and not only with Manchester United, with the other teams. Anybody can win or lose to each other. Maybe it is more difficult in the Premier League, I don’t know, but we are trying to do that.

We are hopefully making history but it takes time. But I have said that before so I cannot repeat myself, otherwise it shall be [headlines of] ‘Van Gaal asks for time again! Until now there is always progress, it’s always progress. I can remind you [the media] of the fact that you were saying, “Defending, defending, that is the problem.” No, no. Defensive organisation starts with the attackers, it’s the whole team. And now we are the best defenders of the Premier League, you are saying that we cannot attack. No, it is not true. It is only a moment in the process. We have stood first in the Premier League. Now we have a bad period because it is a bad period when you do not score goals. Because football is scoring goals.

Football is not a process. Football is not creating chances. No, football is you have to score goals because that makes the difference. We have to improve that, we are busy with that and I hope that we shall score against CSKA Moscow. But I know that it is very difficult because they are very organised. They shall play more defensively than Crystal Palace for example. So it shall be very difficult but still we try to score goals.