Louis van Gaal remains hopeful that Wayne Rooney can end goal drought at Everton

Wayne Rooney returns to his boyhood club Everton on Saturday

Manchester United manager Louis Van Gaal has challenged club captain Wayne Rooney to end his goalscoring drought at his old club Everton as United travel to Goodison Park on Saturday for their ninth Premier League match this season, Sky Sports reported. Despite missing England's Euro 2016 qualifiers against Estonia and Lithuania with an ankle injury, Rooney has been declared fit to play.

The England international was the darling in the blue parts of Merseyside for over two years. Rooney came up the Everton youth ranks and he first made his debut in the Premier League against Arsenal. All the affection for the 29-year-old on Merseyside drained away in 2004 when he left for United in a record-breaking £30million deal.

Rooney has also failed to score on his last six visits to Goodison. In fact, his last away goal in the Premier League came 11 months ago. A lot of United supporters are worried about the England captain’s recent poor form.

However, the Dutch coach believes Rooney can turn it around and end his goalscoring drought against his boyhood club.

“So maybe against Everton he can change but his average is not so good [against them],” he said.

“So it’s getting time that he changed that pattern. I don’t know [why]. That you have to ask Wayne but I’m a manager who analyses opponents and gives him advice as to how we can disorganise Everton’s defence and then maybe he can score.”

“That is what I’m doing, not only for Wayne but all the players, especially from the view of the team tactics rather than the individual tactics.”

He further added: “You cannot answer that because he’s part of the team.”

“He’s scored for us in the Champions League. So for me it is not so important who is scoring. We have scored a lot of goals. In the beginning, your criticism was we don’t score goals but now we’ve scored a lot of goals and you’re picking up an individual player and I don’t like that.”

Rooney is still a vital player: Van Gaal

Louis Van Gaal has been in charge of Manchester United since 2014.

Rooney took over as United skipper since the departure of Nemanja Vidic. The former Everton forward has been instrumental for the Red Devils since the time he arrived at Old Trafford from Everton.

The Dutchman has insisted that Rooney is still his most vital player.

“He’s our captain so that’s very important because his influence is bigger than every other player in our group.” said the 63-year-old manager.

“He’s a very important player for me, his colleagues, everybody.”