Manchester United boss Louis van Gaal is happy to see their new training pitches now laid.

One of the first things van Gaal did after arriving as manager last summer was take a closer look at all the facilities on offer at United's state-of-the-art training ground. While highly impressed with what he saw, the Dutchman requested an important change to three of the pitches used by the first-team squad.

Aon Training Complex head groudsman Joe Pemberton and his team have since worked tirelessly over the last few months to transform those training pitches into Old Trafford replicas and van Gaal is delighted with the results.

"Our [recent] preparations have been helped by the fact that the players are now able to train on our three new Desso GrassMaster pitches which have been installed at the Aon Training Complex," explained the boss in his United Review programme notes.

"These pitches are exactly the same specification as the pitch at Old Trafford, because part of the process is to replicate the conditions we have at the stadium into our training sessions.

"Our head groundsman at the training ground, Joe Pemberton, and his team have worked very hard during the season to ensure there was no disruption to our training schedules and the result is unbelievable."