Louis van Gaal Pleased With Win Over Stoke City

Manchester United boss Louis van Gaal believes his side are in "a good moment" after picking up a fourth straight win with victory over Stoke City.

The Reds ran out 2-1 winners at Old Trafford, courtesy of Marouane Fellaini's header and a free-kick from Juan Mata that might have received a slight touch from Marcos Rojo.

Van Gaal said luck played a part in the closing stages as David De Gea's save and Ashley Young's clearance helped to preserve all three points, but stressed the importance of grinding out results.

“Victories are always valuable because you have to win at a top club," he told MUTV. "If you want to climb the table, you have to win. In England, there are no easy matches. Last weekend, every match in this league was close, so I’m very happy with the win tonight.

“Of course it was a relief - we have to kill games off much earlier. We had some big chances, Herrera in the first half and Fellaini and Wilson in the second. If we had scored one of those, the game would have been over. But, when the scores are close and you have the likes of Crouch coming on to face long balls, the ball can fall anywhere so we were lucky towards the end. I think we deserved to win.

“I want to wait until after our next match [to assess things], but we’re in a very good moment. We’ve won four matches in a row, which is a very good achievement in the Premier League. I want to see what happens against Southampton – when we win a second consecutive away match, then we’ll have great momentum."

The Dutchman handed a first start to striker James Wilson, who replaced the injured Wayne Rooney in one of two changes from the side which beat Hull on Saturday (the other was Ander Herrera coming into the team instead of Angel Di Maria).

After the game, van Gaal gave his verdict on Wilson's performance and declared his opinion on who scored the winning goal after both Juan Mata and Marcos Rojo wheeled away in celebration.

"Wilson could have scored; when he does score, everyone will be even happier with him. He usually scores in training, but today he didn’t, and that’s the difference between training and matchday.

“The second goal was Juan Mata’s, because he took the free-kick. Rojo is running across the goalkeeper, making it difficult for him to catch the ball, that’s something we work on in training. I’m very happy it paid off during a game, and not only during a training session."