Rafael Relishing van Gaal Link-up

Manchester United defender Rafael is relishing the start of the club’s pre-season and cannot wait to begin life under new Reds boss Louis van Gaal, who was unveiled in a press conference on Thursday.

Fresh from a four-week break in his native Brazil, the feisty right-back has set his sights on a solid pre-season campaign which he believes will lead to a better outcome than the disappointing events of last time around.

“I’m very happy to be back after pre-season, we’ve been training for over two weeks now and I’ve got used to that quite quickly again,” the defender told MUTV. “That’s the important thing [to get back to fitness very quickly], we need to get it right on pre-season and do all the things properly and look forward to the season. We all want to get back on track as last season was just not us.”

Like many of us, Rafa spent the summer soaking up all the World Cup action and was particularly impressed with the efforts of van Gaal’s Netherlands. The defender is hoping the steely Dutch boss can bring his match-winning methods with him to Old Trafford.

“I’m very excited," he admitted. "Everyone’s excited to see how he’ll be both during games and away from it. “It’s clear [from watching the boss in the World Cup] that he likes to play with intelligent players. These types of players can change games and often shift from one formation to another. He seems very good at [doing] that.”

“Some of his staff have been here from quite early on, so we have an idea of his methods, but we are all looking forward to finding out more from him.”