Mark Hughes jumps to Louis van Gaal’s defence ahead of Manchester United’s trip to Stoke

Manchester United are currently struggling for form
United have failed to win any of their last six games in all competitions
The Red Devils travel to Stoke in the Premier League on Boxing Day
Former United striker Mark Hughes is the current Potters manager
Hughes has backed his old side to turn their season round

Published:
15:19 GMT, 24 December 2015

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Updated:
20:27 GMT, 25 December 2015

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Mark Hughes calls it ‘cracked badge week’, those days during his 13 years at Old Trafford when no story in the tabloid press about Manchester United’s problems was complete without a picture of the club crest split in two.

Louis van Gaal has experienced so many of them recently that he arrives at the Britannia Stadium to face Hughes’s Stoke City with his job on the line.

Hughes has seen it all before. Dave Sexton, the manager who signed him as a schoolboy at United, was sacked for his boring brand of football in 1981. Ron Atkinson, who gave Hughes his first-team debut, was axed five years later for failing to deliver the Holy Grail of a league title. Even Sir Alex Ferguson dodged a bullet or two.

Stoke manager Mark Hughes believes that Manchester United will turn their season around

The Red Devils have failed to win any of their last six games in all competitions

United manager Louis van Gaal has come under scrutiny in recent weeks following his team’s poor form

Hughes still believes Van Gaal has what it takes to ride out the storm, although he accepts there is little patience in the modern game.

‘Louis van Gaal is a very experienced manager,’ said Hughes, who won two Premier League titles, the European Cup-winners’ Cup and the FA Cup three times in his two spells at Old Trafford.

‘He’s been in those situations before. He’s self-assured and self-confident so I don’t think it fazes him too much.

‘You look at the clubs he’s been at — Barcelona, Bayern Munich, top clubs across Europe, and he’s ended up at Manchester United as a consequence of the success he’s had. He knows what he needs to do but he’s in that period of transition that needs navigating to get through to the other side. A bit of flux maybe.

‘Success comes in cycles. I was there at the end of a period of not great success for United. There was always a cracked badge in the Eighties, don’t worry about that.

‘By the end of the Eighties leading into the Nineties a cycle of success was beginning. They’ve been on that cycle for a long time but maybe it’s a case now of having to step back to go forward.

‘For years they’ve had no change. But now there’s a change of managers, different philosophies, different ways of playing and working, and some people can deal with it better than others.’