Arjen Robben gives former coach Louis van Gaal a vote of confidence

Louis van Gaal’s Manchester makeover hasn’t gotten off to the best start with Manchester United going winless in its first three English Premier League games and getting humiliated by third-division MK Dons, 4-0, in a Capital One Cup game.

But Bayern Munich midfielder Arjen Robben, who watched Van Gaal mold a struggling Dutch national team into a semifinalist in the last World Cup, believes the coach can weave similar magic with Man United as well.

“My experiences with him [is] he’s a great coach to build a new team,” Robben said in a phone interview Tuesday. “Hopefully he gets the time because you also have to be realistic about it.”

Patience, after all, is something Manchester United showed painfully little of with David Moyes, Van Gaal’s predecessor. Moyes was fired last spring just 11 months into a six-year contract. Van Gaal’s deal is for only three seasons.

The 63-year-old Van Gaal, a strict, demanding and often difficult coach, came to England with a much deeper pedigree, having won domestic league titles in three countries in addition to leading the Netherlands to a third-place World Cup finish in Brazil this summer. That resume helped Van Gaal convince Manchester United to spend more than a quarter-billion dollars during the summer transfer window, the second-most expensive summer spending binge in soccer history.

Among the players Van Gaal brought in were Argentine stars Marcos Rojo and Angel Di Maria, Spanish midfielder Ander Herrera, Colombian forward Radamel Falcao and Dutch midfielder Daley Blind.

“They bought some great players. [But] you also have to look at the quality of the team,” said Robben, whose Bayern Munich team is off to an unbeaten start in two games in Bundesliga play. “They still have some very young players. I think he’s the perfect guy to develop the team. But he needs time. It wasn’t the best start and hopefully they will give him the time and then I’m sure that he will be successful.

“You always need the right mixture. Of course you need the quality in the team, but what makes the team very successful is that it’s really about the team and everybody’s working together and that the character is good.”

Manchester United will try again to give Van Gaal his first EPL win Sunday when it meets the visiting Queens Park Rangers at Old Trafford.