Barcelona’s midfield maestros Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta believe that manager Louis van Gaal will be a success at Old Trafford despite struggling in his first season at the club.

The Dutchman was expected to be a major improvement over David Moyes, who presided over one of the worst campaigns at United. Apart from returning to the Champions League, there were a few positives last season. This was despite the club spending huge sums of money on players like Angel di Maria. They have repeated the same in this summer with the likes of Anthony Martial arriving at the club.

Iniesta and Xavi, though, have great experience of working with Van Gaal and they believe that the Dutchman has more than enough good qualities to make him successful even at United. The duo have even labelled the Dutchman as ahead of his time. Van Gaal was the manager who gave Xavi his debut in the Barcelona team back in 1998. The Manchester United manager has refused to take credit for promoting Xavi into the first-team, as he feels that a talent like Xavi is obvious for everyone to see. Iniesta, meanwhile, was still in the youth teams when Van Gaal was the manager of Barcelona, but his training methods had made a profound impact on the player.

“He has been a fundamental person in my career and a key coach in my development. He gambled on me as a player when there were some really big name players in front of me and that’s why he will always be special to me,” said Iniesta.“They criticise him on a human level because he is very direct or because he seems arrogant. But you have to know him as a coach on a day-to-day basis. For me he is fantastic,” said Xavi.