Manchester United boss Van Gaal says Swansea benefitted from their own time

Van Gaal also allowed youngster James Wilson to go out on loan – leaving skipper Wayne Rooney and 20-year-old Premier League rookie Anthony Martial as his only recognised forwards.

“It (a lack of goals) can be solved with money but also on the training pitch”, said van Gaal on Friday. “We scored two fantastic goals and you only win by scoring goals but, as a team, our performance in the first half was better and we didn’t give any chances away in the first half”.

“Today it was very important that we scored two goals”, concluded the German.

“I hope this is a fantastic starting point for us in the New Year and we can continue against Sheffield United”, the Dutch manager added.

Rooney moved ahead of Denis Law in the United scoring charts when he flicked Anthony Martial’s cross into the net to seal a much-needed 2-1 win over Swansea on Saturday.

Across the capital, Arsenal continued their challenge at the top of the Premier League with a hard-fought 1-0 win over Newcastle United at the Emirates Stadium. “We are sitting on the bench in a more relaxed way”.

However, Manchester United sprung to life in the second half with Ashley Young playing as a de facto right-winger as he caused all sorts of trouble for the Swansea defence.

Manchester United’s manager Louis van Gaal waves as he takes to the touchline before the English …

But Van Gaal believes the Mexican is best example of how frustrated a striker can become if he is not playing, saying: “We could have kept all the strikers, but then there would have been a lot of strikers in the tribune [stand]”. You can not always explain that.

“It was an unbelievable goal from Wayne”, Schweinsteiger told reporters at Old Trafford.

“They were two very well-worked goals and to see your two strikers get on the scoresheet, hopefully with the number of chances that we create it’s only a matter of time until these goals start coming and fingers crossed they’ll start coming now”. “Everyone who’s played has done their job and we hope we can carry that on and produce more clean sheets”.

The manager thought his players gave their all for him on Saturday. We did that today and then, in the second half, they exhausted because we really did press them.

This is in a bid to increase the team’s attacking options which have been lean since the beginning of the season not by way of few players there but by way of quality.