Van Gaal is just a bit like Brian Clough!

Louis Van Gaal seems to have done a lot of complaining in the two-and-a-half weeks since he was introduced as Manchester United’s new manager.

The club’s Carrington training ground is too windy, the demands of the sponsors are impacting on his preparation, the distances involved in their pre-season tour of America are too long and his new £27m full-back isn’t fit enough.

He also declared that United are “broken”.

He meant that the squad is unbalanced, but you couldn’t fail to note the implied criticism of his predecessor, David Moyes.

The impression is clear if it had been up to Van Gaal, things would be very different.

Most newly-appointed bosses would probably have kept their thoughts to themselves for fear of offending fellow managers, landscape architects, commercial partners, those who arranged the tour and all the people previously responsible for Luke Shaw’s fitness levels.

Not Van Gaal. If there’s something to say, he’ll say it.

Brian Clough once said that the time for a manager to make his most important demands is in the first few weeks in the job because that’s when he’s at his strongest.

With Van Gaal, though, you get the feeling he won’t be confining his complaints to his honeymoon period.

Like Clough, there is a refreshing bluntness about the Dutchman. And no-one is spared. Take young Shaw, for example. He played all last season for Southampton, then had a month’s preparation for the World Cup before training and playing in Brazil. So you wouldn’t think that fitness would be an issue.

But Van Gaal wants the 19-year-old playing not as an orthodox full-back, but as a wing-back. And no position on the pitch works harder.

There might also have been an element of making sure Shaw is aware that his price tag and reported £120,000-a-week salary don’t cut any ice with his gaffer.

Van Gaal has warned fans not to expect much in the first three months of the season.

That, he says, is the usual length of time it takes for a squad of players to absorb his ideas. Those who don’t will fall by the wayside.

Van Gaal will give everybody a chance but you can anticipate casualties.