Marouane Fellaini has sung the praises of Louis van Gaal, claiming that the manager has brought more intelligence to United’s game.
Football is about the brain, too, no? Van Gaal has brought that here. He tells us how important it is to read the game. When we have a meeting, he will ask why we did certain things, and then we get his opinion. He has that presence, when he talks, when he shouts. He shouts when he has to, but not much. The training field is most important to him. Whoever we are playing, all week he will say, ‘like that, like that, like that’ and we have to do it — we play 11 against 11 to prepare. He didn’t know me. I had to show him. I trained very hard. When the manager asked me to do something I did it — and his way, you know. I did what he wanted on the pitch. I showed I could be effective — that I could make an impact given a role. It started off in training, 11 against 11, five against five — I did what he wanted and he knew he could trust me. I knew he was noticing me because he sees everything and he says everything in public. Nothing is said in private. When he talks to you, he is talking to all the players. You know when you are good, you know when you are bad — and so does everyone else. He has been around big teams, so he knows how to talk to us, how to deal with players, how to be strict in his organisation. That is why we have improved a lot, this mix. There are a lot of meetings, a lot of videos — he shows us mistakes. The game is played with the brain as well. He has made everyone think more about the game.
