Tony Pulis insists Louis Van Gaal is under pressure to make Manchester United serious title challengers next season.
The West Brom head coach believes the Dutchman will be given the time David Moyes never got but needs to get United closer to the top of the Barclays Premier League.
They are fourth in Van Gaal's first season and look set to return to the Champions League after finishing seventh last year.
Van Gaal has ridden out a tough start but Pulis, who takes West Brom to Old Trafford on Saturday, is adamant he needs to deliver next season.
He said: "Louis has obviously spent a bit of money and brought quite a few players in, I think he has had a year to look at it. The difference from himself and (Jose) Mourinho was that Jose knew the league. This is Van Gaal's first season in the league. Next year he has to come close to winning the league, he'll know that.
"It's been great experience for him this year. I'm sure he'll add a few players to the squad next year. They'll want to win it, I see them getting stronger, I can't see them getting weaker.
"David didn't get it (time), but Louis has, most probably on the basis he has been successful at bigger clubs. He's won major titles at bigger clubs. He's earned it by what he's done elsewhere, that's a fact of life."
Pulis has a few injury doubts, but refused to name them, although Youssouf Mulumbu is back from suspension.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article