Rooney out for 2 months and van Gaal refuses to take the blame for Manchester United's lack of firepower

Louis van Gaal has refused to rue his failure to add to Manchester United fire power during the January transfer window after his most in from striker with 7 goals in 9 games, Wayne Rooney was sidelined for at least two months through injury.
Despite having just 20-year-old Anthony Martial left to lead the line in the very critical next two months, the Dutchman has staunchly defended his decision.

Van Gaal offloaded Van Persie, Chicharito and Falcao in the summer and brought in Martial as the only natural striker. When queried on this during his press conference ahead of their Europa league opener, he said:
"No, I don't think that's the case. We have Martial, another striker who had played several matches in this role.
"I knew in advance that Rooney would play a lot of matches, because he was shown this every year. I called Will Keane back and he has done very good in the second team. That's at a lower level, but sometimes you have to show it at a higher level and now he has the chance."

'Jesse Lingard is a second year pro and he is now playing. Our policy is that we didn't want a big squad, because otherwise you can't try youngsters in your team," he continued.
"Normally you don't have 13 injuries in your team. When you analyse the injuries, it's ridiculous. They are all contact injuries and that's bad luck.
'Sometimes you have to back up the tea with youngsters, but this season, we have had to do it every week."

Would Keane feature on Thursday in the Europa league? Time will tell.
Rooney sustained his injury during their 2:1 loss to Sunderland and might have aggravated it after he opted not to leave the pitch. His ligament injury means that his hope of overtaking the club's highest goal scorer Bobby Tambling this season may have come to an end - he is just 6 short of Tambling's 249.