Manchester United transfer news: Louis van Gaal ready for January spend on 'speed and creativity'

Van Gaal will look to strengthen his wings despite seeing Jesse Lingard and Juan Mata both score against West Bromwich Albion at the weekend

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Louis van Gaal will look to spend money on more blockbuster signings for Manchester United in the summer in a bid to produce the “speed an creativity” he wants out wide, despite spending over £60m on Memphis Depay and Anthony Martial in the summer.

Depay has fallen out of the United first-team after a shaky start to life in the Premier League, while Martial was moved to a central role to lead the attack in front of Wayne Rooney for the 2-0 win over West Bromwich at the weekend.

The victory at Old Trafford saw United academy product Jesse Lingard score his first goal for the club after being deployed in a wide-left role, but Van Gaal has stressed his desire to add more players capable of filling to wing position because Lingard and Juan Mata are too slow for his liking.

“I have said already in my first year many times we need speed and creativity on the wings,” the Dutchman said. “You have seen that now we play with Jesse Lingard and he is not the most speedy winger in the world and (Juan) Mata is also not the most speedy winger in the world. So first we must first address that problem.”

Van Gaal’s comments come as a surprise given that Lingard opened the scoring on Saturday afternoon before Mata rounded it off with a well taken penalty.

That said, it’s not a given that United will sign any of Van Gaal’s preferred targets – of which he says there are “a lot” – due to the frustration that the club suffered in the summer transfer window. United saw pursuits of Barcelona striker Neymar, Real Madrid forward Gareth Bale and Bayern Munihc star Thomas Muller fall flat, although with United poised to post record revenue figures of more than £500m for the year, they will certainly have enough money in the back to spend where necessary.

Van Gaal has already shelled out over £260m since replacing David Moyes in 2014, although part of that was offset by selling Angel Di Maria to Paris Saint-Germain last summer – who represents another pace merchant that Van Gaal failed to mention in his analysis of the current side.

“I want to buy a lot of players but not all the players I want are for sale,” Van Gaal added.

“So there are a lot of factors in it.”