Dwight Yorke believes that it was the wrong decision from Louis van Gaal to drop Wayne Rooney to the bench during Manchester United’s defeat against Stoke.
Rooney came on at half-time on Boxing Day after goals early in the first-half from Bojan and Marko Arnautovic ensured that the Reds slipped to a fourth consecutive defeat in all competitions.
The result means that even more pressure is heaped on van Gaal ahead of Monday’s encounter against Chelsea and former United striker Yorke said that the Dutchman was wrong to leave out his captain in the most important match of his reign to date.
Speaking on Sky Sports after the game, Yorke said:
Leaving out your talisman, your captain in the most difficult situation; someone with the experience, although his performances have not been the greatest, I just felt it went against him and he [Van Gaal] got it wrong again this afternoon.
I just think the timing was wrong. I think there have been so many opportunities probably to leave Wazza [Rooney] out and I just felt that in his most difficult spell as the manager of Manchester United, to leave your captain out was a big call.
He’s [Van Gaal] a manager of a lot of experience and, of course, you have to make these calls but it certainly went against him today and I felt that was probably the wrong move, for Van Gaal’s point of view.
Yorke also heavily criticised United’s display at the Britannia Stadium and bemoaned the lack of match-winners on the bench, which he put down to van Gaal’s recruitment in the transfer window:
I have to say it was painful to watch Man United. I felt that it was a team lacking in confidence. No sparkle whatsoever in that team.
I look at that bench to see if someone can come on apart from Wayne Rooney who can bring something, who adds something different to the team. They seem to be short in every department and Stoke took full advantage of us [United] this afternoon.
Where are the likes of [Javier] Hernandez – people in the past like Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who come off the bench to sparkle or to bring us back into the game? It just seems like we lack that.
The players who have left the club and the players who have replaced them have not been good enough in my opinion. I think that is where the manager’s downfall is, in the quality of footballers he has brought to the football club.
