“When a colleague of mine (Allardyce) is saying this kind of thing then, yeah, you have to see the data and you have to put the data in the right context,” Van Gaal said.
“I think the media is also coming to the match and you have a lot of opinion about me, or the game, or the players and now you say that you have no opinion.
“When you have 60% ball possession do you think that you can do that with long balls?
“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 called long ball play. 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.
“It is not so difficult also to read that.”
With Fellaini playing a central role in United’s attacks on goal in the final stages, Van Gaal insisted his more direct approach in an attempt to salvage a point was justified.
“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,” Van Gaal said.
“Then, of course, with the quality of Fellaini we played more forward balls and we scored from that, so I think it was a very good decision of the manager.
“But, when you see overall the long ball, and what is the percentage of that, then West Ham have played 71% of the long balls to the forwards and we 49 per cent.
“So, I give you this (data) you can see that the blue ones (arrows) are the good ones because long balls are also very difficult, which is why I began with the explanation of ball possession.
“When you have 60% ball possession you cannot play long balls.
“So again, they did it 71 and we 49, and I give it you, you can copy it and then maybe you can go to Big Sam and he will get a good interpretation.”