Young Excited By van Gaal's Tactical Approach

Ashley Young believes his Manchester United team-mates will blossom in Louis van Gaal’s 3-5-2 formation, which helped the Reds record an emphatic 7-0 demolition of LA Galaxy in midweek.

The Dutchman used a similar system while managing the Netherlands at the World Cup in Brazil and has wasted little time in implementing it at United, despite the fact that he only took charge of the club this month and has enjoyed just over a week of training.

Thankfully, van Gaal’s decision paid dividends and the Reds strolled to a comfortable victory thanks to goals from Danny Welbeck, Wayne Rooney (2), Reece James (2) and another brace from Young, who was clearly delighted by the performance.

“It was a great feeling, it is pre-season and we want to get our fitness up and prepare for the new season as best we can,” Young told MUTV. “We have got some great games out here and we wanted to get off to a winning start and I felt that was a great performance.

“In pre-season, you can take your foot off the gas in the second half but we had a new team that went out there with a new formation that I think suited us perfectly. I don't think LA Galaxy were able to cope with that, we got on the scoresheet in the first half and we wanted to get more goals. We managed to do that in the second half."

Quizzed on the success of van Gaal’s 3-5-2 formation, Young continued: “It was fluid. There was a lot of space for us to get on the ball and LA Galaxy were not able to cope with that. We tried it in training and we have tried it in a match scenario. This will be the formation we take going forward.

“I am not giving away too many ideas," Ashley explained. "When we defend, we defend as a team. When we attack, we attack as a team. The players are interchangeable. As the season progresses we will be looking to get balls into attacking areas to get goals. We saw that by the fact we managed to score seven times.”

Darren Fletcher was forced to fill in at centre-back during the midweek win, playing alongside youngsters Tyler Blackett and Michael Keane after Jonny Evans, Chris Smalling and Phil Jones had all exited the action at the Rose Bowl.

Speaking after the match, the skipper was pleased with his performance and the way his team-mates are adapting to the manager’s new formation. “It was a good experience, I have done it before and we had worked on it in training. But it does help when you’re in a back three. Plus, Michael and Tyler beside me were excellent so it helped a lot.

“I have actually played there before, when we went away to Wolfsburg in the Champions League. I played in a back three with a makeshift defence, but this has been a case of learning a lot quickly and I am sure we are going to be improving as well the more we practice it. I thought that, considering the time we have had, the lads did fantastically.”