Former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has backed current boss Louis van Gaal’s decision to revamp his squad and stamp his own identity on the club.

Dutchman Van Gaal has overseen an array of changes since succeeding David Moyes in the summer. There have been six high-profile arrivals in Manchester for an estimated £150million, including a British record transfer fee of £59.7million paid for Angel Di Maria when he arrived from Real Madrid.

Van Gaal has also allowed 14 players to leave Old Trafford, the majority of whom were stalwarts in Ferguson’s last title-winning campaign of 2012/13 including the spine of their defence that season in Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic and Patrice Evra.

A number of young British players have also moved on to fellow Premier League clubs, including Danny Welbeck to Arsenal and Tom Cleverley to Aston Villa on loan.

Despite all the early changes, Ferguson is convinced the Dutchman is taking the right approach, particularly considering fellow Scot Moyes made limited changes and managed to last only 10 months in charge.

“Louis van Gaal has made a lot of changes and, thinking about that, actually maybe he’s doing the right thing to clear the decks and build his own team,” said Ferguson.

United suffered a tough start to the campaign after winning only one of their opening five Premier League games ,but back-to-back victories against West Ham and Everton have rocketed the Red Devils into the top four and they are now 15.00 to win the title this season.