Van Gaal Explains Rashford Rest

Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal has explained his decision to rest Marcus Rashford for Saturday's 1-0 win at Norwich City.

The teenager was taken out of the firing line with more big games on the horizon and the boss felt fatigue was starting to affect the striker's play. An injury to Anthony Martial in the warm-up at Carrow Road may have changed van Gaal's opinion but he is convinced Rashford will benefit during the remainder of the campaign.

"You see in the games, Marcus is not doing the things he did in his first match or second match anymore," said the manager. "You want to deny that at first and you say it to him but then you see maybe it is tiredness. So I hope that these two days give him again the stimulus to be in the line-up in the next game because we have to play West Ham and it’s not an easy game.

"I wouldn’t have rested him for the match [if there wasn’t another one on Tuesday] but now we only have two days’ recuperation and recovery. That is too short for these players."

Van Gaal feels Wayne Rooney did well in a lone striker's role when he decided against pitching Adnan Januzaj in for Martial due to the Belgian's Under-21 run-out at Chelsea on Friday.

"Adnan played a half yesterday and it was his first half in the second team," he added. "I could not put him in the line-up as striker so Wayne has to do that and he did it very well because he did a fantastic assist for Juan Mata. Wayne plays normally as a left no.10 now, more or less."