‘Of course I want to be a champion, but it is not so easy. There can only be one each year. You should never be too disappointed when you have done everything you can to reach a certain level. It is not only the result that counts, the way you play can be almost as important.”

Louis van Gaal of Manchester United has just said that, not Arsène Wenger of the perennially disappointing Arsenal. The meeting of the two sides at the Emirates on Sunday has led to plenty of discussion of contrasting styles and temperaments, whether the Dutchman could envisage staying at the same club for two decades (no), whether he would ever go a whole summer without bringing in a single new outfield player (emphatically no), yet the pair probably have more in common than it might at first appear.

Neither are being taken seriously as title contenders, for a start, despite United knocking their neighbours off the top of the table last Saturday. Van Gaal is happy for his side to be regarded as a team in transition – in fact, he is still using that very term – and although he is not promising anything, he keeps referring to his three-year plan when asked if he can turn United into champions.

“Everybody can see the progression, but when I presented myself at this club I asked for three years,” he says. “At the end of that period, yes, I would like us to be champions, but circumstances have to be favourable for that to happen. You can play very well, perhaps play the best football in the league, but it does not always mean you will end up champion that year.”

Arsenal can be cited as a case in point. Marvellous squad, capable manager, no titles in 11 years. “I like very much the way Arsenal play football,” Van Gaal says. “I think they may be the best team in the league, but they do not win so much. Why that should be the case is a question for Arsène Wenger, not me, but I think Arsenal have a lot of players who can play in the way we want to play, with a good tempo and a high ball speed.”

Wenger is being pilloried for signing only a goalkeeper in the summer transfer window, then leaving him out of a crucial Champions League game in favour of an understudy who did not distinguish himself, whereas Van Gaal’s rebuilding work was at the opposite end of the scale, with some £100m being spent on Anthony Martial, Memphis Depay, Bastian Schweinsteiger and others.

Yet to put that into context, Manchester City spent more, and United recouped more than half the amount through player sales. And in terms of the Arsenal comparison, United needed rebuilding. Some would argue they still do, while Wenger has the opposite problem. At least as an offensive unit, Arsenal are pretty much a great team already, certainly an outstanding collection of players.

While it could be argued Wenger has a blind spot over central defence, or that the team’s lapses are due more to a collective mental issue than actual deficiencies in playing strength, the overall feeling is that Arsenal need only a tweak to hit the heights again, not a full-scale overhaul.

Van Gaal feels that way, though the United manager differs from his Arsenal counterpart in one important respect. Van Gaal would tweak every season, for the sake of it, regardless of the team’s success or otherwise. “My philosophy has always been to change the selection every year,” he explains.

“Even if you have won a title there will always be players who haven’t worked quite as well as you expected, and there will usually be others waiting for their chance. I like to give new players a chance, especially young ones, and I think you always need to change. I have done it everywhere I have been, even if we have won the league.”

As Van Gaal has won the league in three different countries with four different clubs his philosophy should not be lightly dismissed, and neither should his observation that conditions have to be favourable. His last title came with Bayern Munich in 2010, and though his time in Germany was not a complete success it should be remembered that he won a shot at the Bundesliga big time by virtue of taking AZ Alkmaar to unlikely success on his return to Holland from Barcelona. That small miracle took four years to accomplish, and while his present club are incomparably bigger in terms of budget, ambition and status, Van Gaal does not yet feel the circumstances surrounding a United title challenge are as auspicious as they might be.

“Losing Luke Shaw was a big blow,” he says. “I said at the start of the campaign that this was going to be the season of Luke Shaw and now we have lost him. That is the one position that we do not have double-occupied, so I have had to look for a solution. I have tried Young, Rojo, Darmian and Blind at left back, and we have won all the games, but in my opinion we don’t have a good substitute for Luke Shaw. That is the sort of blow that can come along. It makes the circumstances not so good.”