Manchester United captain Wayne Rooney believes his side can challenge for the Premier League next season, but admits the Reds need to recruit the right players this summer.
United finished 4th in Louis van Gaal’s debut season at the club, and have secured a place in next seasons Champions League (subject to qualifiers).
Van Gaal also took an early punt at signing players for next season, securing the signature of fellow countryman Memphis Depay. However Rooney is confident that United can compete at the highest level, if the signings keep coming.
Rooney, speaking from his website, had this to say:
“I honestly believe we will go far next year and won’t be far off challenging for the league.”
“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 in the summer 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.”
The 29-year-old, who is just shy of being England’s all-time top scorer, also praised the work of new manager Louis van Gaal in his first season in English football.
“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.”