Wayne Rooney to miss Manchester United’s next two fixtures

“The injury of Wayne Rooney is more heavy than we thought, so neither can play”.

Rooney was replaced by Memphis Depay in the second half of the 1-1 draw against Leicester City last weekend.

“It’s more or less the same as what happened last season (at City) so he is for more weeks out”.

Van Gaal also confirmed that Rojo had dislocated his shoulder in training and bemoaned his luck at the string of “unavoidable” injuries his players had suffered.

Herrera, 24, almost joined United in summer 2013 after being scouted by David Moyes, and eventually made his move a year later with Moyes’ replacement Van Gaal sanctioning the deal. “I watch them a lot and every game they have more chances and more ball possession than the opponent and in every game the opponent has only one or two chances”. It’s been getting worse but we have to let him train to make the ankle stronger, that’s very important.

“The question shall he be operated on?” But, of course, we need to work on our formation to try to score goals and win games’. “We have to see that later because we have to wait for the scan at a proper time”.

“I’m not sure he’s going to be a regular in a Louis van Gaal side and, although he’s a very good player, he’s just more suited to Spain”.

He said: “So we are looking but, as you know, it is not easy”.

Meanwhile, Van Gaal is intrigued to see how United legend Gary Neville performs after his surprise appointment as Valencia manager this week. With regular left-back Luke Shaw out with a long term injury after suffering double fractures to his leg, the Dutchman had turned to his left-sided central defender Rojo to fill up that position.

Van Gaal was not giving any clues away about whether he would revert to a back four after sending United out in a 3-4-1-2 formation at Leicester.