Louis van Gaal hits back in Wayne Rooney debate as goal-shy striker comes under fire

Wayne Rooney has endured a difficult start to the season and drew blank against Aston Villa

LOUIS VAN GAAL showed signs he is feeling the heat after admitting he is facing the highest pressure game of his reign as Manchester United manager.

 

Perhaps his mood should come as no surprise with an eye-watering £50m jackpot riding on United negotiating their Champions League qualifying round against Bruges and reaching the lucrative group stages.

But Van Gaal was surprisingly prickly when faced with perfectly legitimate questions about how to get the best out of Wayne Rooney ahead off tonight's first leg against the Belgians at Old Trafford.

 

Louis van Gaal didn't take kindly to questions from the media about Rooney's poor form

Having vowed to score 25 to 30 goals this season, the fact Rooney hasn't scored in his last eight competitive club appearances - two this season following six at the end of last season - is an area of growing concern for United followers.

And while winning their first two games, United have not created an abundance of chances. So is it a lack of service for Rooney, who touched the ball in the penalty area only once at Villa Park on Friday?

Is he still building up to his peak fitness, or are these signs that Rooney, 30 in October, is on the wane?

 

Van Gaal was not in the mood to give his captain a ringing endorsement, preferring instead to turn the tables on the media.

"For one year the media have advised me to put him in the striker's position," he said. "So it is amazing that after two matches you are doubting your own opinion. I cannot understand that. I always have confidence in my players.

"But we don't only have Wayne Rooney. We have Adnan Januzaj, who showed in pre-season he can play in the striker's role, Chicarito [Javier Hernandez] and James Wilson, so we don't lack strikers."

When asked if the supply line to Rooney could be improved by moving Juan Mata in from the right flank to his preferred No10 position behind the striker, he was equally evasive.

 

"Maybe you can ask the board of Manchester United if you can be the trainer coach or the manager and then you can discuss it with your staff. I don't discuss it with the media," he retorted.

"I can't say nothing because when I say something the media put it in another context. I noticed that with my words about David De Gea and I am very disappointed you [the media] do that. It is better not to answer certain questions."

Van Gaal was willing to concede that while United have looked solid, they have also hardly set the world alight yet and, like many other Premier League teams, have big improvements to make.

He added: "It [form] is always a concern because a manager wants always the perfect game but that game has never been played. But you see that none of the other teams are at their highest level yet. You can't be at this early stage. We have made abetter start than last season but we have along way to go.

 

"We have kept clean sheets and that says a lot about our structure and our balance in the team so I have confidence and I expect that we will develop ourselves to a much higher level."

Only two English clubs have ever failed to negotiate the qualifying round - Newcastle in 1997 and Everton in 2005 - and Van Gaal is well aware of how crucial it is to United's pride, prestige and finances to safely negotiate tonight's first leg and the return in Belgium next Wednesday.

And he is taking no consolation from the fact Uniited appear to have the easiest draw they could have got by avoiding Monaco, Lazio, CSKA Moscow and Rapid Vienna, who knocked out his former club Ajax in the second qualifying round.

"There is a lot of pressure because our players, our board and especially our fans want to participate in the Champions League," he said. "And the draw has made it even more difficult because Bruges are a good team. They can defend and attack well.

"As Arsene Wenger mentioned last season, these kind of matches are difficult. For all those reasons of course these are the most significant games since I arrived here. We have to show our quality."

 

He could do with captain Rooney reminding the world of his quality by breaking a club scoring duck in that stretches back to April 4.

Probable line-ups:

Man Utd (4-2-3-1): Romero; Darmian, Smalling, Blind, Shaw; Carrick, Schneiderlin; Mata, Januzaj, Depay; Rooney.

Bruges (4-3-3): Bruzzese; De Fauw, Mechele, Duarte, De Bock; Simons, Vormer, Vanaken; Diaby, De Sutter, Vazquez.