Ryan Giggs highlights key Man Utd difference between Sir Alex Ferguson and Louis van Gaal

Louis van Gaal struggled to replicate Sir Alex Ferguson's success at Manchester United after taking charge in 2014.

The Dutchman arrived with a glittering CV but lasted just two years at Old Trafford with some of his methods being heavily criticised.

And Ryan Giggs, who played under Ferguson and was assistant to Van Gaal, claims the Scot gave his players plenty of clarity whereas his successor struggled.

Van Gaal arrived with a reputation for being innovative and has been hailed as the best tactical manager Wayne Rooney played under.

But Giggs claims he sometimes struggled to condense the information he was giving to his players.

“I understand what Wayne was saying. Obviously we both worked under Sir Alex who I’ve known since I was 13,” Giggs told United’s  website.

“Sir Alex had everything – man-management, discipline, standards, tactics, knowing a player, but with him, because we had such good players who had been together for a long time, you’d just go out and play. You knew your role, it was just a matter of just tweaking it.

“With Louis it was probably the opposite. We played different systems under him whereas under Sir Alex we more or less just played one system and we'd tweak it.

“I can’t remember us ever playing three at the back, maybe once or twice if we needed to hold on, but other than that we didn’t.

“It was about getting an understanding of the different ways to play. So I know what Wayne was saying because Louis worked a lot more on the training pitch with regards to patterns of play and tactical work.

“He’d come from Holland and also an international background and he took that into club football, so we had a lot of meetings – players felt sometimes too many!

“With Sir Alex it was quite simple. I’m not saying we didn’t have meetings – of course we did – but we had such good players that the manager would just need to tell them once and it would just be a little tweak here and there, like Ji-sung Park would go and mark Pirlo for example and Ji would do it and do it brilliantly.

“So I know what Wayne meant in terms of learning a lot under Louis.”