Rooney – Blame the players and NOT Van Gaal for United woes

United’s 3-1 defeat of Derby County eased some of the pressure on Van Gaal’s position as the club progressed to the fifth round of the FA Cup.

The young Frenchman laid on goals for Wayne Rooney and Juan Mata, with Daley Blind also scoring for United in between.

We have the starting teams for tonight’s FA Cup tie between Derby County and Manchester United, Louis Van Gaal can not afford to lose this match.

“We gave a goal away and it was by ourselves again, but I liked the performance in the first half, it had a lot of confidence and that is back which is very important”.

Meanwhile, it will be a long and arduous journey for Manchester United to claim the Europa League, which means that the FA Cup is probably their best bet of claiming some silverware this season.

“We want to win, we always want to win, and we’re trying”.

In their last league game, United were limited to one shot on target in a disappointing 1-0 loss to Southampton at home, after which the crowd made its discontent known to Van Gaal and his players.

It has been a troubling week for Van Gaal, who has trained his fire on the media and sarcastically said losing to Derby could cost him his job for a fourth time this season.

Reports suggested Van Gaal had even offered to resign following the Southampton setback and that Jose Mourinho had been increasingly put forward as a potential replacement should United decide to make a change. It’s also not the first time that it’s happened with me but I can survive.

When Thorne equalised against the run of play after 37 minutes United’s insecurities briefly returned and, but for a superb last-ditch tackle by Chris Smalling to deny Chris Martin, they could have been trailing at halftime. “I have always faced this [scrutiny]”.

“These are the type of games we want to be playing in, the kind of teams we want to be facing, week in, week out and now we have a big, big game on Tuesday against Preston”.

With Manchester United returning to Old Trafford for a game against Stoke City, it remains to be seen how the fans will receive him.

“I think they are in good shape, in good form. They are a team that every club in the Premier League has a lot of difficulties with”.