Rooney-MManchester United will challenge for tittle next season

The club have gone two years without winning the
trophy, but their captain believes they are now
strong enough to compete next season
Wayne Rooney is confident Manchester United will
challenge for the Premier League title next season.
Manager Louis van Gaal suffered a slow start to life
at Old Trafford, overseeing just three wins in his
opening 10 games, but United lost just five times
since the turn of the year to secure Champions
League football.
Having last won the title in 2012-13 as Sir Alex
Ferguson bid farewell, Rooney now feels the squad
are back on the right footing to be challenging the
likes of Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City at
the top.
"I honestly believe we will go far next year and
won't be far off challenging for the league," Rooney
said on his official website.
"If you look at the first 10 to 11 games we only
had around 13 points, and if you look at where we
finished I think it shows we could have been up
there with a better start.
"We've dominated and outplayed most teams this
season but haven't taken our chances to win those
games, it could have been a different story if we
had.

"The most important thing is that as a squad,
including the manager and myself, we believe we
are close to challenging for the title and with a
couple of signings we will have a good chance of
doing that.
"It would be good to win as many cups as
possible, a club like Manchester United should be
winning trophies and hopefully next season we can
put that right."
Rooney admits last season was another
disappointment for United having failed to mount a
title challenge and finishing empty-handed but
added that missing out of the top four would have
been a "disaster".
He added: "Our main target this year was to get
back into the top four, and we have done that so in
that sense it's not bad at all.
"You have to realise that at the start of the season
we had a new manager, new coaches and a lot of
new players, so it was always going to be a tough
ask for us to go and win the Premier League.
"It was a bit disappointing not to win any
silverware, especially the FA Cup after the defeat to
Arsenal in the quarter-finals; we had a great
chance of going on to win that.
"After last season it would have been a disaster if
we didn't get that Champions League spot, but the
main thing is that the club is now back where it
belongs."