Rooney Suspension Can Be a Blessing for Van Gaal and Manchester United

Under normal circumstances, if a team's captain and most high-profile player is suspended for three games, it would be a blow to that team and manager. Particularly if that team had suffered a difficult start to their season. And especially if that team was in the middle of something of an injury crisis.

However, Wayne Rooney's three-game suspension for the red card issued after kicking Stewart Downing in Manchester United's 2-1 win over West Ham United at the weekend might turn out to be a blessing for Louis van Gaal.

At the very least, attack is the one area of the United team that doesn't seem to have been afflicted with assorted ailments. Radamel Falcao and Robin van Persie are both fit and firing, Juan Mata and Adnan Januzaj are ready having been twiddling their thumbs on the bench for the last few games, while young James Wilson is returning to fitness as well.

United have plenty of cover for Rooney, but beyond that, his enforced absence might be good news for Van Gaal because it takes a difficult decision out of his hands.

There has been a sense that Van Gaal has been trying to force Rooney into the United side in recent weeks, pushing him into the No. 10 role in order to accommodate him, Falcao and Van Persie, when it would perhaps have suited the balance of the team for either Mata or Januzaj to play there.

Indeed, Van Gaal added to the sense that he is having to work in order to find a place for Rooney and hinted that he would be amenable to dropping the skipper when, after the 5-3 defeat to Leicester, he was quoted by The Independent as saying:

"

Rooney can play in more positions, he’s a multi-functional player and I have tried him in a striker’s position. He has played well, but not spectacular. Falcao is a striker and I think he can do it better.

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Rooney is still a fine striker, as he demonstrated with a terrific finish to give United the lead against West Ham at the weekend, but as Van Gaal indicated, there are two better options in front of him in that position.

In addition, in a 4-3-1-2 formation when the man behind the forwards has to sometimes drop deep and help the midfield, create and find space in tight situations and be creative, it seems clear that there are also better options than Rooney available to Van Gaal.

It's not that Rooney is a bad player—when on form he quite clearly isn't—simply that other players fit the United team, as it is currently constructed, better than the England captain.

And then there's the question of whether Rooney can be trusted. It isn't merely that he got sent off against West Ham, but that he was sent off for an act of needless violence in his own half. One could have understood, if perhaps not condoned, taking out Downing if the Hammers winger had been clean through on goal, as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer did to Rob Lee when the Newcastle man was about to score back in the 1997/98 season, but this seemed utterly needless.

And, as Daniel Taylor of The Guardian pointed out, that Rooney either felt the need to resort to such a high challenge or no longer had the ability to do anything else, hints at a decline in the player's capabilities.

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The other thing about that red card: a few years back, you'd have backed Rooney to catch Downing the legit way

— Daniel Taylor (@DTguardian) September 27, 2014"

It was, at best, an enormously irresponsible thing to do because there was no other possible outcome to such a ludicrous challenge, meaning Rooney put his side, who held a slender lead at the time, a man down and in greater danger of losing their advantage. Rooney apologised for his dismissal on the official Manchester United website, but an apology isn't much use if there's still the strong impression that this sort of thing will happen again.

Is that the sort of player United want as their captain? Is that the sort of player United even want in their team?

The three-game suspension will give Van Gaal the chance to either try a new formation that isn't based around cramming Rooney into the team or try players better suited to the current system.

If either of those approaches work against Everton, West Bromwich Albion and Chelsea, then suddenly it becomes much easier for Van Gaal to leave Rooney out a little more regularly.

And as things stand currently, that can only be a good thing.