Wayne Rooney Sends Manchester United Title Warning to Chelsea and City

Manchester United's recent surge in form has got many among Louis van Gaal's squad believing in their renewed title threat, not least club captain Wayne Rooney.

After the club recorded their sixth successive victory with a 3-0 hammering of Liverpool, Rooney has sent a message of intent to Chelsea and Manchester City, per Chris Wheeler of the Daily Mail:

"

We are eight points behind and coming into a busy period. If we can win our games and the others have one bad result then there is nothing there. We have to keep winning and hopefully get back to the top. 

We have a great team spirit. Everybody is pulling together. We all want to win, we all want to be successful. As long as we keep working we won’t be far away.

"

It's been a swift but marked improvement on the club's morale of several weeks ago, where Van Gaal was still earning comparisons to predecessor David Moyes in the search for consistent results.

However, United's record now makes for far more pleasant reading and with Manuel Pellegrini's Citizens just five points away, the Red Devils are right back in the mix to finish in the top four at least.

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Rooney was deployed in a midfield role against Liverpool and he believes the transition will add years to his career:

"

It’s a different system and a new position again for me but I’ve played it before. It can help me in years to come. I feel I can drop back and it will give me an extra few years at the end of my career.

"

The main difference of late has been Van Gaal's ability to cope with injuries, integrating the new faces into his setup but also finding the strategies that best suit those who were already in the squad.

United's rise has been so drastic that leader Rooney even rewarded his troops by setting up a second Christmas party, per the Mail Online:

The 29-year-old opened the scoring against Liverpool on Sunday and now has three goals in his last four games, doing his part to aid the team's rise from the front.

Robin van Persie and David de Gea have also been essential figures of late, showing that despite a busy summer, it's those who were already at United making an impact. Samuel Luckhurst of the Manchester Evening News agrees:

Rooney's confidence is understandable given that United are currently the highest they've been in the Premier League standings since winning the 2012-13 title, Sir Alex Ferguson's last season in charge of the club.

Van Gaal was always tipped as a prestigious tactician who had the nous to get the Red Devils back on track, but after entering November in eighth, even he was shown to be struggling.

Not only are the fans believing again, but Rooney's proclamation suggests the players have faith in the cause, too, and if the injury plague can soon come to an end, in theory, prospects should only improve.

Despite enjoying a busy summer of business, Bleacher Report's Andy Brassell recently sat down with Ryan Bailey to discuss where the Red Devils should aim their efforts in the January market:

All that being said, the last two games United failed to win in the Premier League just so happened to be a 1-1 draw against Chelsea followed by a 1-0 defeat at the Etihad Stadium.

In order to really show their title credentials, a lot of focus will shift to April's back-to-back meetings against Jose Mourinho and Pellegrini's sides.

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It's here that the Red Devils' lack of European football should prove an advantage, with both City and Chelsea making their way into the last 16 of the Champions League.

Both Rooney and Van Gaal can only hope that extra load on the schedule serves as a burden for their superiors in an effort to reduce—and eventually overcome—the Premier League deficit.