Van Gaal Values Training Time

Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal says pre-season is a vital period because it gives him and his coaching staff prolonged time on the training field with the players.

Van Gaal has a large team of fitness and sports science specialists working alongside him at United in order to monitor every aspect of each player's fitness level. Those stats will be of prime importance as the Reds aim to be in the best possible shape to kick off the new season, with Tour 2015, presented by Aon, forming a major part of the overall fitness plan.

The boss will lead his side back to the United States in July to take part in the International Champions Cup with matches against Club America, San Jose Earthquakes, Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain. He says the tour will also provide him with ample opportunities to work on a number of key aspects in training.

"The most important thing is always the training hours on the pitch because that is the time when the players have to cooperate in team tactics. That is what we call team performance and that has to be very good," he told ManUtd.com and MUTV in an exclusive interview.

"We have a big number of staff, I have never worked with such a big number of staff. For example, we have a fatigue specialist, a warm-up specialist, a strength specialist and I also have an assistant, Jos van Dijk, who creates the programmes for every player with the sports science department."

Van Gaal, who started work at the club shortly before last summer's tour, has had a big input into the planning of this year's trip to the US, including the selection of two training bases in Seattle and San Francisco Bay. He also requested that the team will be fixture-free between flying home after the final match in Chicago at the end of July and starting the new Barclays Premier League season on 8/9 August.

"I asked the board for us not to play the week before our first Premier League match," the manager revealed. "Last year we played against Valencia a few days before we had to play Swansea City and that was too much. Therefore they have permitted that we don’t play one week before the first game as that [first] match is very important. We want to win it this time and I hope we can start very well."