Wayne Rooney has revealed that Louis van Gaal was keen on him playing like Erling Haaland during his time at Manchester United.
Of course, back then, Haaland was not a professional footballer, so the Dutchman did not actually use him in particular as a reference point for the English legend.
But the former Manchester United boss’ idea was for his number nine to get involved in build-up play that much.
Wayne Rooney says Louis van Gaal wanted him to play like Erling Haaland
During Manchester City’s latest 1-0 win against Brentford, Erling Haaland just had 32 touches of the ball during the contest, according to Sofascore.
But at the same time, the £51 million (The Guardian) man’s most key touch of the game was the winning goal, which is perhaps what’s most important for Pep Guardiola.
Initially, Rooney reflected on his desire to always be involved in the game during his illustrious spell at Old Trafford.
“If I was more selfish, I potentially could have scored a lot more goals. But I just wanted to play. The amount of times I had midfielders telling me to go away, Sir Alex [Ferguson] would say to me, you need to stay up front.”
However, when Louis van Gaal joined Manchester United, he expected Wayne Rooney to operate as Erling Haaland does nowadays.
“I remember Louis van Gaal, when he came in, I thought tactically, he was the best I worked with, it was the stuff off the pitch that was difficult for players and how he worked. But I remember him coming in and saying he wants his centre-forward to have 15 or 20 touches a game”, he revealed on The Overlap’s Stick To Football.
Jamie Carragher replied, “That’s [Erling] Haaland!
Wayne Rooney said, “Yeah, that’s exactly what Haaland does!
A striker like Erling Haaland can impact how defenders think massively
In our view, Louis van Gaal made a fair point by wishing for Wayne Rooney to adapt his game to play like a striker like Erling Haaland.
Considering Haaland does not have too many touches of the ball, defenders can end up having two types of feelings about him during a game.
One is that they have managed to tame the Norwegian international and ultimately, be lulled into a false sense of security.
While an impending doom surrounding the fact that Erling Haaland could score at any time could make them jittery.
As a result, they might either make a mistake or try far too hard to stop the 23-year-old just for space to be created for his teammates to exploit.
With these factors in mind, Louis van Gaal’s vision for Wayne Rooney made complete sense.
