Rooney expresses confidence in United challenge for the Premier League title 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."