Louis van Gaal has described Manchester United’s Boxing Day visit to Stoke as a must-win game.

United’s manager is under significant pressure after three straight defeats which have seen the team go out of the Champions League and fall out of the Premier League’s top four.

Van Gaal insisted before walking out of a press conference on Wednesday that his job was not under threat but in an interview with MUTV he accepted the description of the Stoke match as must-win.

“Yes, I think so because, when you have lost three times in a row, then you need a victory,” he said. “We have focused ourselves to do that but it is not easy. Stoke City have won against Manchester City, for example, and it’s a special ground. It is not easy with a lot of circumstances that are not suitable always to playing good football.

“The key is always communication and talking with each other for the evaluation of the match, how we have prepared and so on and so on. We have to focus on that match and we have to win that match. We have analysed Stoke and seen the ball is flying in the wind. You have to cope with every circumstance and that is why we are preparing ourselves for that game so we can show the players what it is like.

“I have said already in one of my press conferences that players like Bojan and Xherdan Shaqiri are very good attacking players and have played for fantastic clubs like Barcelona and also Bayern Munich. You cannot say that these clubs cannot buy players from that level.”