United Confident Ahead Of Club Brugge Tie

Tuesday’s Champions League play-off match against Club Brugge is of great importance to Manchester United’s season and Louis van Gaal feels his players are confident of victory.

The Reds opened the 2015/16 campaign with a 1-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur and followed that triumph with another 1-0 success over Tim Sherwood’s Aston Villa, which was secured thanks to Adnan Januzaj’s impressive first-half goal at Villa Park on Friday night.

United’s attention now turns to the midweek clash with Brugge, who will visit Old Trafford for the first time in their 124-year history, with a place in the Champions League group stages up for grabs.

A match of such pressure and high stakes is unusual at this stage of the season and there is an understandable risk of being caught off guard, perhaps due to a lack of fitness and match sharpness, but van Gaal is content that his team is ready for the mental and physical challenge.

Asked if United are ready for the first-leg tie, the boss said: “Yes, I think when you win two times then you shall have a lot of confidence. But every match is difficult and Belgian teams can play very compactly, they can defend and a team always has a chance of winning. Like on [Friday], every team has a chance and if they score out of that chance then it shall be very difficult.”

A quick glance at the Barclays Premier League table shows United have earned six points from two matches, the maximum on offer, despite only managing to score two goals in total. That second statistic was raised during van Gaal’s post-match press conference at Villa Park on Friday and the boss fended off suggestions he should be worried by the Reds’ attacking output thus far.

“When you score more than your opponent, then it is enough,” he explained. “But I think we had too many unnecessary ball losses. That is not only Adnan Januzaj but also Memphis Depay and Wayne Rooney, so a lot of players can do more and we have to improve that.

"But, in spite of the ball losses, we had more chances than the opponent and bigger chances, and we scored the goal. It was a fantastic goal after a fantastic pass from Mata.”