Wayne Rooney Offers Insight into Louis Van Gaal's Manchester United Approach

During an interview with Manchester United legend Gary Neville—broadcast Monday on Sky Sports 1—Wayne Rooney discussed life at Old Trafford under Louis van Gaal. 

Rooney discussed the captaincy and the expectations placed on him as a striker and gave insight into Van Gaal's unusual approach to penalties.

As Samuel Luckhurst of the Manchester Evening News documented following the interview, Van Gaal has a pool of penalty-takers in the squad.

These players form a queue. When one misses, the next in line takes over penalty duties until he misses. Rooney was first in line, but following his failure to convert against Liverpool, Robin van Persie took over. When he missed one, Juan Mata was awarded the opportunity.

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After his next miss, Ander Herrera will apparently have to step up, followed by Ashley Young. Only after Young misses one will Rooney get another chance. It seems an eccentric approach, but it clearly works for Van Gaal. There is a lot of pressure on the takers to perform, though.

As Rooney said of his two penalties on last summer's tour of the USA, "I've never felt that pressure [before] in a pre-season game, to be honest."

It was not just the penalty issue that was enlightening, though. Rooney was positive about his relationship with Van Gaal as captain, saying:

"

He always asks for my opinion—there's some things which obviously he's in full control of and there's other things where he'll ask my opinion. There will be times when I'll go and speak to the team and get the team's opinion then go back to him with what we think should happen.

He's fairly good, he listens to what we say.

"

Rooney also revealed that he was able to speak to players as a collective with no staff present ahead of some crucial games earlier in the season. His comments paint the picture of a dressing room wherein players are treated with a degree of autonomy.

This is no surprise given how often Van Gaal refers to the human aspects of his job rather than focusing only on the technical ones.

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There was also some insight from a technical perspective, though. Neville enquired whether Rooney had been asked to serve a different function as a striker than what he had done previously. The captain's reply was telling:

"

I think it's a more disciplined role. The manager, actually, when he spoke to me about how he wants me to play up front, he went back to when he was manager at Bayern Munich and the striker was averaging ten touches a game, but then he said "but he was scoring two goals a game." So I was like "no pressure then, two goals in ten touches."

"

For Rooney, this approach is almost directly opposite to his typical play. Throughout his career, he has come to the ball when it is not coming to him, wherever he is playing on the pitch. Van Gaal has clearly asked him to sacrifice some of that work rate in favour of positional discipline.

While the "two goals per game" part has not been happening, when United have been at their best, there has certainly been space for midfielders to influence games. Rooney went on to say:

"

I obviously understood the role he wanted me to do. I was trying to stay high, trying to stretch the pitch and more leave the space for the midfield players which I think was being shown, we were killing teams in midfield in particular with Fellaini and Ashley Young and I was trying to obviously stay out of it and look for runs behind and take up the, try and control the two centre-halves, really.

"

It is further evidence that Van Gaal is trying to get each player to think differently about his game, something that is a hallmark of his management.

Indeed, the quirk regarding penalties, the human quality of his relationship with Rooney around the captaincy, the interaction with the squad and the specific tactical details form a neat encapsulation of various aspects of Van Gaal's approach. We have some added insight into what the philosophy looks like in practice.

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Rooney and the rest of the squad will hope that philosophy comes to fruition over the next two seasons.