Why oh why Van Gaal has now come out and felt the need to back Rooney is beyond me. Okay, there are public relations involved and you need to at least pretend that all is good with the captain and face of your club, but there are other ways of doing this.
Louis shouldn't have said anything, but instead quietly dropped Rooney and allow the media to make of that what they may. By coming to verbally defend Rooney and insist he needs to play through his drop in confidence, means now that if he were to drop him, it would not look good on his part. Going back on your word never ever looks good. On the other hand, playing Rooney these days is like proceeding to go into a match with ten men. Rooney is just completely useless now and there is no other way to put it.
I can understand why Van Gaal would come out to defend his captain. United have been under a lot of pressure. Not winning many games recently, playing pretty standard football and not scoring goals. The biggest culprit of the drought has been the man from Liverpool who looks like he has no idea how to play the sport. But Van Gaal has kept playing him despite that. Due to his very strong personality that may be slightly arrogant, he wouldn't be one to just come out and admit that he has been wrong in playing Rooney. But King Louis, there does come a time where you need to down some humble pie and do what is best for the club and institution that employs you.
What I'm fearing that Van Gaal is doing is almost acting like a child. With everyone being critical with his conservative chances that are drawing blanks and of Rooney who he has stuck with, he will not do what the critics says BECAUSE they are being critical of him. Even if it's the right thing to do, he won't yield because perhaps it would show weakness on his part. If that is the case, then that is a foolish stance to have. Rooney is NOT playing well and is highly ineffective. The obvious move to make is to just drop him altogether so you can at least have a player who takes his place who I can guarantee would contribute far more to the cause than Mr. Wayne.
Despite the lack of results, people can't be too critical of United. They are still in the top four in the league and they have a good chance of coming out of their very tight Champions League group. But as people have noted, if Martial was to go down injured or get suspended, with both Januzaj and Chicharito being shipped off inexplicably, United would be in very big trouble and getting goals and even creating chances would now become a serious problem.
HH
