Chris Smalling warns Manchester United must build on win

Excellent goals from Anthony Martial and Wayne Rooney ensured United brought their eight-match winless sequence to an end with a 2-1 win – but the three points owed an element of good fortune against their managerless visitors.

Bastian Schweinsteiger acclaimed an “unbelievable” goal by Wayne Rooney after his Manchester United team-mate created a piece of history in Saturday’s 2-1 win over Swansea City.

“I think we played a very risky system against Swansea because they had a shape with four midfielders in a diamond”, Van Gaal said. The last player to score a first half goal at Old Trafford in all competitions was Juan Mata v Wolfsburg in September. You have to say, of course, now we are playing much more matches but it is still a fantastic achievement.

“The second half is better because we scored two fantastic goals but as a team our performance in the first half was better”.

Rooney’s goal also put him alone in second in the all-time list of Premier League top scorers on 188, behind Alan Shearer’s 260. “I hope that it is the fantastic starting point for the team, but also him”.

When Robins scored a header in a 1-0 FA Cup third round victory in at Nottingham Forest in 1990 allegedly saved Sir Alex’s job which would then see him go on to claim a host of silverware in the next two decades.

“Always at home we are playing in a more attacking way, to please the fans but also because that is also the culture of Manchester United”.

But Rooney will be all the better for his winning goal a week after being dropped at Stoke, audaciously turning Martial’s cross into the net with a flick of his left heel.

Van Gaal could name an unchanged team from the Chelsea clash, with Marcos Rojo, Luke Shaw and Jesse Lingard still on the sidelines. We have that quality, but at this moment there is a lack of confidence at the right time, [so we continue to work] or we need to buy another striker.

‘We could have kept all the strikers but then there would have been a lot of strikers in the tribune [stands].

“There are now players in my selection who want to play, but they can not play because I choose another player”.

That piled the pressure back on under-fire manager Van Gaal, but his captain came to the rescue just six minutes later.

Jamie Carragher has suggested that Wayne Rooney is at the level of a player five years his senior due to “miles on the clock”. But we want to give pressure from the first minute and we have done that.