Danny Higginbotham is confident that his old side Manchester United will “get better as the season goes on” and finish in the top four.

The Red Devils suffered a staggeringly poor 2013/14 campaign under David Moyes, who failed to get the Red Devils into any form of European competition for the current campaign before being sacked by Old Trafford chiefs.

Louis van Gaal was drafted in over the summer as his replacement, with the Dutchman backed to the tune of £150m in the transfer market to ensure that the money spinning competition that is the Champions League would once again be gracing the Theatre of Dreams in 2015.

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After a difficult opening to his tenure – losses at home to Swansea and away at newly-promoted Leicester were notable poor results – things appear to be looking up at United, with Saturday’s 3-0 victory over Hull their third three-point haul on the bounce.

And Higginbotham – who started his career with the North West side and also played for Gibraltar – is confident his old team will do what it takes to finish in the top four:

“United are going to get better as the season goes on,” he told talkSPORT.

“They’ve got more players and better players to come back [from injury] than those that are actually playing. You’ve got [Radamel] Falcao, who I believe will be a fantastic player for Manchester United, you’ve got Daley Blind who started well, [Ander] Herrera's been in and out but he’s now back fit and [Juan] Mata seems to be getting things better.

“Tactically he [Van Gaal] can set up in different ways. “If you look at his track record at previous clubs, it takes a few months for him to get going and then what happens is everything falls into place. The players start to understand his philosophy and then they keep rising and rising.”

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