Chris Smalling: Players are fighting for future at Manchester United

Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal’s position may be under scrutiny, but Chris Smalling has warned his team-mates they are fighting for their futures too.

Though United put on an improved display in their 0-0 draw against Chelsea on Monday night, the fact remains that their manager is under-achieving and under pressure. Van Gaal, who has spent over a £250m since taking over 18 months ago, has overseen seven goalless draws this term and his team are five points adrift of fourth place with half the season to go.

However, there is no sign United are ready to wield the axe and the Dutchman said following the Chelsea match that he had no plans to quit. Van Gaal revealed he had begun discussions with executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward about January transfer targets, and Smalling knows that could affect him and his team-mates after they embarked on their worst run in 26 years.

“To say we’re not playing for the manager is silly,” said the United centre-back. “If anything, we are all playing for our own futures as well, so there’s not a case of no one not playing for the manager.

“No matter what, whether it is good or bad, this club is always in the spotlight, and we’ve rolled our sleeves up, worked hard on the training field and had to make sure that we regrouped, especially after that loss against Stoke, so against Chelsea we stood up and showed that we were the better team, albeit we didn’t get the win.”

Van Gaal is such a confident character that hearing him speak about the possibility of resigning after the 0-0 draw at Stoke on St Stephen’s Day came as something of a surprise. The former Ajax and Barcelona manager sounded as if he had accepted the idea that he would leave the club.

However, Smalling insists there has been no change in his manager’s demeanour over the last few troubling days.

“No, he has been himself from day one that we met him to how he is now,” the defender said.

“He is not going to change and that is why he has had a lot of success throughout the years. I can’t ever see him changing, because he’s got a track record.”

The England international, arguably United’s best player this season, admits he and his team-mates are in real need of a win.

He hopes Monday’s performance, in which they should have taken three points following a thrilling first-half display, will help United end their eight-match winless sequence when they host Swansea on Saturday.

“We want to stick at the top end of the table and, when you dominate games like the one against Chelsea, you need to win them, but we will take the positives from this and really make sure that next week we get the win,”said the 26-year-old. “Now, hopefully, this will give us that little boost that we can play well and kick on.”

United set out to please their frustrated fans against Chelsea and Morgan Schneiderlin does not believe they could have done any more.

“We talked before the game and said it was a must for us to be aggressive, to be on the front foot and to attack, just for our fans because they deserve to see some attractive football. What more could we have done? We just needed to score one goal and then be able to play around it.

“We know that if we can improve on the first part of the season, by scoring more goals and getting back to the strong defensive performances we had before the last few games, then anything can happen.”