Wayne Rooney believes there is a sense of the “old” Manchester United around the Premier League club and that the squad is confident they can compete strongly for the title.
United have already added to Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Eric Bailly and Henrikh Mkhitaryan to last season’s side and the return of Paul Pogba appears to be a matter of time.
Rooney, the team’s captain, says the feeling in the dressing room is that they have turned a corner. “I think the players feel this is more like the old Manchester United,” he told the Daily Mail. “It’s not just the new signings, we’ve got Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford from last season who made such an impact.”
“We’re in a very good spot now, we think we can challenge for the Premier League, and we want to put a marker down in the Community Shield with Leicester (on Sunday),” he added.
The arrival of Pogba, who left for Juventus in 2012, will energise United further and Rooney thinks the France international will feel he still has work to complete at Old Trafford.
“He had great ability, some of the things he could do, and he’s gone up a level since he left us,” Rooney said. “I hope he is going to want to return to United and prove he’s a top-class player. If he’s excited to play for us, we’ll be excited to have him back. I’m sure he’ll feel there is unfinished business, and it would be a very big statement by the club if they can make it happen.”
Rooney is expected to contribute from a forward role this season, one more familiar than the midfield position he occupied for the bulk of 2015-16. He says José Mourinho’s plans should give him the freedom he enjoys and have led to a switch in his mentality.
“He wants us to play with a lot of freedom, a lot of rotation in the forward positions, lots of opportunities to score goals – and I think I can do that, score the goals to help us be successful,” he said.
“Getting that mentality back, from being a midfield player to being a goalscorer again is what I’ve been working on all pre-season. I’d known for a long time I could play midfield if I had to, and the way United were playing as a team at the time it was the role I most enjoyed.”
Among the changes Rooney would make to the England set-up is the amount of downtime afforded to the players, with the intensity of an international tournament denying them the breaks from football that are built into the domestic schedule.
“If you’re watching football, talking football, thinking about football 24/7, then your head’s constantly working, you never get those moments to have a coffee or go to a restaurant, have a game of gold like you would the rest of the time,” he said. “And I think that’s the start, really, to try and get the lads working more like they do at home.”

‘Faulty team selection led to early Euro exit’
Wayne Rooney also blamed England’s Euro 2016 humiliation on Roy Hodgson’s unsuccessful selection gamble. Hodgson made six changes for England’s final group match against Slovakia and the subsequent goalless draw cost England first place in their group.
England captain Rooney was one of those rested by Hodgson and the Manchester United forward says the loss of momentum caused by Hodgson’s decision was instrumental in the team’s stunning last 16 defeat against minnows Iceland.
“I wouldn’t have rested six players. It’s more than half the team. It was a gamble and it didn’t pay off,” Rooney told the Daily Mail. “We had lost momentum from the Slovakia game and tournament football is about confidence. You get that from winning. We didn’t play great in the friendlies, but we won. So you try to build, even from before the tournament, but we couldn’t get that consistency once it began.”
“It was Roy’s decision to make changes against Slovakia and either way, the team he put out should have been able to win. But, right or wrong, I wanted to play and I can’t deny that,” he added.
Rooney came on as a substitute against Slovakia, but the 30-year-old insists Hodgson, who stepped down immediately after the Iceland debacle, should have retained the team that defeated Wales in the previous fixture.
“When I came on against Slovakia it was difficult to change the game, impossible really. I was running around just trying to get the energy back into the team,” he said. “Watching, I felt we lacked aggression — in the running, in the passing, we didn’t have the tempo, so that’s what I was trying to create.”
Sam Allardyce has replaced Hodgson as England boss and he has so far refused to confirm if Rooney will remain as national team captain. Allardyce has said he will reveal his decision when the squad meet up for their World Cup qualifier against Slovakia in September.
But Rooney is adamant he will continue playing for England for at least two more years whether he is captain or not. “I’ll carry on until the World Cup in 2018 and then I might have a decision to make,” he said. “But for the next two years, captain or not captain, I’ll turn up and be available to play if I am wanted. I’ve spoken to him. Not at length about how we’re going to play or my role, but he seems very excited about the job and he’ll have his own way of doing it.”