It won't be the first time van Gaal has sat in the away dug out at Turf Moor. The last time was over 22 years ago when in charge of Ajax when they beat us in a friendly at the end of the 1991/92 season.
Now he's back as manager of Manchester United and in the build up to the game he's been speaking mainly about their long term prospects but also briefly about his new signing Angel Di Maria who has arrived from Real Madrid and even more briefly, and hardly courteously about Burnley.
On his new man, who has cost close to £60 million, he said: "He has impressed me. The first training session was with all the boys and he was very impressive. The second was a little bit less so but he has to adapt to the culture and the players with whom he shall play.
"It is the other way round also, the Man United players have to adapt to his way of playing. I believe he is ready to play. He is fit enough. He played a match in Madrid and he is ready to play."
Regarding his second visit to the Turf, he added: "It will be a fantastic atmosphere. They'll play with a lot of passion and long balls. We have to fight against that. It shall be a very difficult game but we have to show we can play football."
Sean Dyche has been quick to point out that this is no easy game no matter the fact that they only have one point more than us from the opening two games.
"Whether they are under pressure or not it will only be shown when the whistle blows as the rest of it is opinion, perception and conjecture. That's when two teams come together and ours will be ready, organised and certainly fit enough, we know that.
"We want to play with quality and give a performance that can win. I can't worry too much about the opposition, we have to make the players aware of it tactically of course, but we have to look at ourselves and not get involved in what is going on at Manchester United."
They've spent big this week; we haven't, and Dyche added: "We are in a position where we are trying to align players so literally every player is suddenly getting linked with us. I mention it week after week about some of the figures that are mentioned, which are bizarre in my world.
"I don't know what clubs these alleged players are going to, but some of them won't be coming here with the figures being mentioned.
"We are in the market and we're trying to be active. There are certain situations ongoing but I like to conduct myself in a manner where we concentrate on our business and not other peoples.
“We’ve got to try and structure deals and be into deals that we think we can be effective with, but they’ve also got to affect the group. It’s tough, very tough but that is the reality of where we are and what we are trying to do, not just now but into the future as well.
“It’s even more challenging if you haven’t got a massive chequebook where you can just throw money at every situation or the situations you want. We haven’t got that so we’re trying to do our business wisely and accordingly and it takes time to do that.”
Asked about our last Premier League home game against United, he said: “It’s a different group and dynamic so we don’t talk about the victory over them back in 2009 that much.
“Obviously Duffo was here but he’s been here around 14,000 years I think, but around the town, people I bump into mention it and it’s a marker amongst many for this club but that’s all it is.
“The game has changed since then and it has moved on. It’s still a powerful team and a very powerful club coming to Turf Moor.
“We played well in our last game against Swansea and even Garry Monk alluded to the fact we should have got something out of the game, but could have, would have is not a definite and we need to make sure we get something out of games.
“We want to play bravely, on the front foot with energy and win football matches.”