Wayne Rooney believes Manchester United can challenge for the Premier League next season if they recruit right players this summer.
Under the management of new coach Louis van Gall, Manchester United secured the final Champions League place in his first season in charge, despite a stuttering start to the campaign.
Nonetheless, after spending around 150 million pounds on new signings, the club were never in title contention and finished 17 points behind eventual champions Chelsea FC.
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The club has already secured the services of Dutch youngster Memphis Depay for 32 million pounds and captain Wayne Rooney is confident that with the right additions, Manchester United can challenge Chelsea FC for the league title next season.
“I honestly believe we will go far next year and won’t be far off challenging for the league,” he said on his 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 in the summer 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.”
Defending van Gaal’s first season in charge that has come under increased criticism from former players and pundits, alike, for only scraping into a fourth place finish without trophies despite heavy amount of money splashed in the transfer market, the 29-year-old England and Manchester United captain was philosophical and glad the club got “back where it belongs”.
“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,” he said.
“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.”