No artificial way to deal with United pressure – Van Gaal

Under-fire Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal says there is no “artificial” way to ease the pressure on his out-of-form side.

Van Gaal’s days at Old Trafford appear numbered after United slumped to a fourth consecutive defeat with a 2-0 loss at Stoke City on Boxing Day, stretching their winless run to seven matches.

The Dutchman stated in the aftermath of that defeat that he could resign if results do not improve, while also expressing his belief that the team cannot handle the pressure of their poor form.

And Van Gaal says that only three points against Chelsea on Monday can alleviate the tension surrounding the club.

“It is not so easy anymore and when you lose four matches in a row it’s much more difficult after the third match, it’s like that and the pressure of the environment shall increase,” he said.

“So it is much more difficult and there are no artificial ways to solve that, we need a victory and that’s very important, but we also have to do our work, our preparation and of course our recovery in the training sessions.

“We can only recover – we cannot train, we have to recover then we play the match against Chelsea.”

Van Gaal feels that coping with a poor run of form is also more difficult at a club as big as United.

“I’ve seen in my other jobs that when you lose in a top team, then it is always more difficult to cope with your environment,” he added.

“You see of course that different players, in a different way cope with pressure, that you can see and that is also in other teams so you cannot say that it is fixed, for every player, every human being it is different how they want to cope with it and it is not so easy.”