Van Gaal: Manchester United Upturn Imminent

“Business with Man Utd is going very well”, said Hainer.

Rooney moved past Cole to second outright in the all-time list of Premier League top-scorers after netting the victor in United’s 2-1 victory over Swansea City on Saturday.

“But this (commercial) success confirms again that Manchester United is not just a football club, with more than 650 million fans globally”.

Regular communication is normal between the Dutchman and his charges in the many meetings they have.

Van Gaal was given the commitment by Ed Woodward and the Glazer family prior to a week in which he has engineered an upturn in his team’s fortunes, culminating in Saturday’s 2-1 victory over Swansea, United’s first in nine games.

Powell is predominantly an attack-minded player and can feature both in midfield and up front, illustrated by his decent goals-to-game ratio while plying his trade at former club Crewe Alexandra. If Rooney is key to the dressing room, it still appears to be behind Van Gaal. “I can not close my eyes to that”. I know I wouldn’t want to play against him. “It’s an aspect of the same philosophy that I had”.

Carragher continued to say “we have said before he was playing at 16, so, in reality, he’s maybe like a 33-34-year-old” as the amount of games Rooney has played over the years are starting to catchup with him, and it’s time to just admire what he can do nowadays. Better late than never I suppose. He’d see it as the opposite: A sign of strength, of him evaluating and adapting to make better use of the tools at his disposal.

Manchester United fans have company in apparent displeasure with its style of play.

More chances were taken against Swansea from a man who had previously been risk averse.

Martial set up Rooney’s fine victor after opening the scoring with an emphatic header, and Smalling has hailed the attacking qualities of the young France worldwide.

“He scores also a fantastic goal, with his left foot behind his right foot, and you can not imagine what a goal that is”. We did that today and then, in the second half, they exhausted because we really did press them.

It would be wrong to suggest everything is rosy at Old Trafford, of course. He has now scored 51 goals in 109 caps.

And the playing staff were also angered by their own performances on the pitch, Van Gaal revealed. It is a competition well worth winning and one in which United have performed poorly for a decade.

It’s about time the players got angry and gave a reaction. Now, they’ve been overtaken by Arsenal.

There were a few boos at half-time when United failed to score in the first half for the ninth home game in succession, but despite registering only three shots on target and playing slowly, Van Gaal was happy with his team’s performance before the break.

“This win will raise the players’ confidence and lower the pressure on them”.

There is a statue of him arm in arm with George Best and Bobby Charlton – the other two members of United’s famed “Holy Trinity” – outside the East Stand of Old Trafford. “They are also not used to that, I’m not used to that, losing four matches in a row”. The forward capped a breathtaking counter-attack at the Emirates Stadium as he collected a return pass from Nani and finished with aplomb. “That’s not what you expect from one of the greatest clubs in the world”.

In my view, it’s not United’s winless run in December, but the style of football that Van Gaal chooses to deploy that creates an issue.

“The way the team plays, it contributes to how Wayne plays as well”.