Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal has revealed that Wayne Rooney was unhappy at being substituted during his side's 1-0 win over Aston Villa this afternoon.

The United skipper made his first start for more than two months having recovered from a knee injury, and lasted 67 minutes before Van Gaal replaced him with Jesse Lingard.

Marcus Rashford got the only goal of the game at Old Trafford to make it seven in 12 games since breaking into the first team, and Van Gaal also revealed that he wanted to rest the youngster, but didn't because of his fine form.

"I wanted to change [Rashford]. He is young and he has played the last how many matches but at the end I don't want to do that because I want to take profit also of his momentum. And he was very positive to play," he told reporters.

"But I thought I could take him off. It was the same with Wayne Rooney but he was angry because he wanted to play 90 minutes.

"But you could see he was losing balls in the second half that he was not in the first half. I think he was very good in the first half. I think the goal was also his goal. It's a good spirit when you want to play 90 minutes. I'm very positive about his first half."

United's victory leaves them three points off the Champions League places, although that gap would grow to four should Arsenal avoid defeat against Crystal Palace on Sunday.