United have struggled for consistency under the regime of the Dutchman

Manuel Pellegrini says that he sympathises for his Manchester United counterpart Louis van Gaal, who has been at the receiving end of a huge amount of criticism this season.

United have struggled for consistency under the regime of the Dutchman. Fans have also not been able to get a glimpse of the beautiful football that used to be a trademark of the club under Sir Alex Ferguson for more than two decades. Van Gaal has also not been able to deliver trophies that the club has been without since 2013. Due to these reasons, the Dutchman is widely expected to depart one year before the end of his contract.

Pellegrini’s departure from Manchester City has already been confirmed with Pep Guardiola set to replace him in the summer. However, Pellegrini remains keen on going out on a high after getting his team into the Champions League quarter-finals. Van Gaal does not have the luxury of doing well in Europe to compensate for the failings in the Premier League. He watched his team suffer a 3-1 aggregate loss against archrivals Liverpool in the Europa League. United are without a win in the last four games going into the weekend’s Manchester derby.

Still, Pellegrini says that United are a team to be respected. "I think that Louis van Gaal has a lot of experience. When you are managing big teams, you cannot expect not to receive criticism if you do not win and he has the experience to manage that situation. Always - and I am not only talking about Louis van Gaal - when a manager is in a bad moment, you want to support him.But I don't think he has any problems, with the experience he has of managing the big teams during his whole career. He is not maybe in a good moment but he knows how to manage," said Pellegrini.