I Will Not Resign As Manchester United Manager

Louis van Gaal has vowed to fight on as Manchester United manager after his team's goalless draw against Chelsea.

The Red Devils are in their lowest position at this stage of the season in 26 years, but there were enough encouraging signs for Van Gaal to deny he would quit, as he suggested he might. United put on their best display of the season in the first 45 minutes, rattling the woodwork on two occasions and drawing two superb saves from Thibaut Courtois.

United were unable to find the net stretching their winless run to eight matches of the campaign, but Van Gaal, who was applauded as he entered and left the pitch on Monday was in a boisterous mood post match. “Inside of the club the players are willing to fight for every metre, the manager is willing to fight, the members of staff are willing to fight and the board is very confident in the staff and the manager so the negativity is not inside Manchester United," he said.

Van Gaal admits he is powerless to stop the board acting if they want to make a change, but he did not seem terribly worried about his future. “I cannot have any influence on that," he said. "I can only work with my players and you have seen that the players are fighting for me; they have given a good performance. After this result the fans were applauding. I cannot say that I am very much concerned, but in this football world you never know. When the players can give such a performance with this lot of pressure then it is not any reason to resign for me. I am under contract so it's not a question of staying, it is a question of fulfilling my contract”.

The Dutchman was disappointed with referee Martin Atkinson, who failed to award United two penalties. The first came when Juan Mata went down in the box following a challenge by Cesar Azpilicueta and then Willian's handball went unnoticed by the officials. “We had two penalty cases, one the foul on Mata, the other the handball of Willian, when I was on the bench I thought it was not on purpose but when you see on the video, you see the hand is going to the ball and not the ball is going to the hand and then you can only say we are unlucky”, Van Gaal said.

Meanwhile some United fans made it clear they wanted Jose Mourinho in the home dugout, rather than Van Gaal. A vendor was spotted outside the stadium selling Red scarves with Mourinho's face on them. A handful of fans snapped them up for the asking price of £10 and inside the stadium, one fan held up a placard that read: “Leave, Vanish, Go”.