• Premier League

'You don't expect United to go under like that'

Sam Allardyce has hit out at Louis van Gaal and claimed Manchester United should have handed David Moyes £150 million to spend last summer.

United let slip a 3-1 lead to lose 5-3 at the King Power Stadium last weekend. Van Gaal's side have just five points from as many games in what has become the club's worst start to a season in Premier League history, despite their lavish summer spending.

Louis van Gaal has just five points from five Premier League games © Getty Images

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It was the first time the club have ever lost after taking a two-goal lead in the Premier League and Allardyce, whose West Ham side visit Old Trafford on Saturday, feels United's capitulation was not "normal".

"A normal United would have regrouped and won 5-3 at Leicester, not lost. You don't expect them to go under like that. Apparently they are in transition," Allardyce told The Sun.

"But we've been in transition too and, while ours has been smooth, theirs hasn't. We've brought in nine new players and eight have gone out."

Van Gaal overhauled the United squad this summer with 15 players cleared out and Radamel Falcao, Angel Di Maria, Ander Herrera, Daley Blind, Luke Shaw and Marcos Rojo all arriving.

But Allardyce has questioned why Moyes, his good friend and Van Gaal's predecessor, wasn't backed in a similar way in the transfer market by United when it came to his top targets last summer.

"If I was sat at home in David's shoes I would be wondering why they didn't spend the £150m with me," said Allardyce, who is still waiting to hear on a new deal from West Ham with his contract due to expire next summer.

"There was a complacency by United in not going out and delivering the signings David felt he needed. Now there's a panic on.

"He will obviously look at what he might have done better but he should have got the players he wanted and he tells me he didn't get any of them.

"It was difficult enough taking over from Alex Ferguson but if, when you take over, you don't get what you want, it's so much harder. It was a great shame because he'd done everything right at Everton and Sir Alex saw the fact he wanted to build at United like he had done at Everton.

"I'm not so sure anybody would have been successful in that season - history tells you that.

"Look at other examples, like when Brian Clough took over from a legend in Don Revie at Leeds and only lasted 44 days."

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