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MANCHESTER. — Louis van Gaal hit back at Sam Allardyce’s claim that Manchester United are long-ball merchants by brandishing a dossier full of statistics at his Press conference yesterday. West Ham boss Allardyce described Van Gaal’s team as “long-ball United” after they scraped a 1-1 draw at Upton Park on Sunday.

However, the Dutchman said Allardyce’s “interpretation” was incorrect and produced a pamphlet filled with statistics at his pre-match Press conference yesterday to support his stance ahead of tonight’s home match against Burnley.

The statistics quoted in the A4 pamphlet, which were put together by Van Gaal’s analysts, claim West Ham sent a higher percentage of their long passes forward than United during the match.

West Ham attempted 200 passes, according to the figures, and United 343. The pamphlet said 71.1 percent of West Ham’s “long passes” — of over 25 metres — went forward whereas United’s percentage was just 49.9 percent.

Diagrams in the pamphlet claim to show United’s passes went sideways or diagonally, rather than forward.

Van Gaal talks regularly about the fact that he wants his teams to play attractive football.

He was clearly, therefore, annoyed at Allardyce’s comments and he had the pamphlet on his desk waiting when he fielded the first question about the West Ham boss’ jibe.

“Because I expected this question, I have made an interpretation of the data for this game and then I have to say that it is not a good interpretation from Big Sam,” said Van Gaal.

The United manager insisted his team only started launching balls forward when 6ft 4in Marouane Fellaini came on in the 76th minute of the draw in east London.

“When you have 60 per cent ball possession do you think that you can do that with long balls?” Van Gaal added.

“Yeah, long balls, in the width, to switch the play.

“You have to look at the data and then you will see that we did play long balls, but long balls wide, rather than to the striker.

“A ball to the forward striker is mainly caused long-ball play.

“It is not so difficult also to read that.

“I am sorry, but we are playing ball possession play and after 70 minutes we did not succeed, in spite of many chances in the second half, then I changed my playing style.” — Sky Sports.