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LONDON. — Louis van Gaal will risk the wrath of Manchester United’s fans again tonight when his side resume their push for a top-four English Premier League finish against Stoke City. Having talked up United’s title chances following their 1-0 win at Liverpool, the manager saw his team fall to an abject 1-0 home defeat against Southampton on their last league outing, after which they were booed off by angry fans.

United won 3-1 at second-tier Derby County in the FA Cup on Friday, but Van Gaal admitted afterwards that he “cannot predict” how the supporters would react to another setback.

However, captain Wayne Rooney said that criticism of the beleaguered Dutchman was “unfair” and urged his team-mates to use the victory at Derby as a catalyst for an upturn in the league.

“It was obviously a better performance than last week’s game, but the manager gave us a lot of freedom to go and play and I think you can see the difference in the team,” he said.

“You could see we were enjoying it, scoring some good goals and thoroughly deserved to win. We want to win, we always want to win, and we’re trying. Even when you’re giving 100 percent, it doesn’t always come off, but thankfully on Friday it did. Hopefully we can put in another performance like this again on Tuesday (tonight) and take this into the game against Stoke.”

United were beaten 2-0 at Stoke on Boxing Day, a result that media reports suggested could cost Van Gaal his job, but although he remains in his post, another defeat would expose him to renewed scrutiny.

United begin the weekend in fifth place in the table, five points off the Champions League places, and Stoke could move to within a point of them with victory at Old Trafford.

Fixtures

Today (all 9:45pm unless otherwise stated): Arsenal v Southampton, Crystal Palace v Bournemouth (10pm), Leicester City v Liverpool, Manchester United v Stoke City (10pm), Norwich City v Tottenham Hotspur, Sunderland v Manchester City, West Bromwich Albion v Swansea City (10pm), West Ham United v Aston Villa

Tomorrow (9:45pm): Everton v Newcastle United, Watford v Chelsea. — AFP.