Manchester United Players Rally Behind Louis Van Gaal After Loss

Manchester United’s new captain, Wayne Rooney, has opened up about Saturday’s disastrous start to the Premier League season.

Rooney played the entire 90 minutes against Swansea, but despite the fact that he was starting the match as United’s official captain for the first time the 28-year-old couldn’t inspire the Red Devils to victory. Instead they succumbed to their first opening-day defeat since 1972.

The England striker has now admitted that because United won five and drew one friendly in their impressive pre-season campaign, they might have been over-confident going into the contest.

“This is a really bad result for us,” he revealed. “But we will learn, especially with the manager we have got.” The captain then went on to note that their good form in the summer might have been a factor in their performance against Swansea: “Maybe after a good pre-season we were over confident.”

Rooney also labelled last seasons as a “disaster.” In the first campaign after the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson, United hired David Moyes to replace his Scottish counterpart. However the former Everton coach suffered a disastrous time at Old Trafford, and having inherited a team that won the Premier League at a canter the season before he only led them to a 7th place finish.

Moyes was ultimately sacked after just 10 months in charge at the club, and he also failed to qualify them for a European competition for the first time since 1990. Louis Van Gaal was hired this summer but he has so far failed to stop their slide.

Rooney confessed,“We know last season was a disaster. It wasn’t good enough and we were ready for the start of this season. But we just have to look at the bad points and cut them out. If we do that we will win games.”

However, despite their woeful performance, Darren Fletcher, who plays in midfield for United has declared that he things the side will quickly recover. The new vice-captain predicted: “I believe we’r going to have a good season. All the players believe that too. This whole club is about bouncing back from adversity.”

The Scottish international then noted that the squad hasn’t been affected by Nemanja Vidic, Patrice Evra and Rio Ferdinand’s departures, and the youngsters that replaced the aforementioned trio will ultimately come good.

“People talk about the players that have left but I see it in the eyes of the young players, they’re ready for it and determined to show people how good they are and we’re determined to show people how good the team are. You have to be a big character to play for this club,” he declared.

[Image via Bing.com]