Rooney says he would love to manage Man Utd or Everton
Manchester United goalkeeper David De Gea claims that the Red Devils could be under a curse after controversially missing out on victory for two consecutive games. The club's manager, Ralf Rangnick, also seemed mystified after two commanding performances left them with little reward.
United's post-winter break frustration began in the FA Cup, when Middlesbrough converted a 1-1 draw into an unlikely penalty shootout victory.
Matt Crooks' equaliser came under fire, however, with many feeling as though a handball should have been penalised in the build-up.
Refereeing decisions played another prominent role against Burnley on Tuesday, when a rare Jay Rodriguez strike cancelled out Paul Pogba's opener.
The Red Devils had two goals ruled out at Turf Moor, both of which sparked fierce debate. Firstly, an offside Harry Maguire was deemed to have interfered with play before Raphael Varane's header found the net, and then Pogba was penalised for a foul in the build-up to a Josh Brownhill own goal.
David De Gea has an alternative theory for Man Utd's recent run of form (Image: GETTY)
That left United with one Premier League point and an FA Cup exit on their hands after playing two opponents who should, on paper, have been over-matched.
With fans, players and indeed Rangnick searching for answers, De Gea gave his interpretation in a recent interview.
"I think someone has put a curse on us or something," he told El Pais.
"The truth is I don't know what's going on, I really don't.
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"People always ask me and we talk about it as team-mates and we just say, 'we don't know what's happening'."
Rangnick took fairly drastic action on Tuesday by demoting Cristiano Ronaldo to the bench, and leaving him there for the first 68 minutes of the match.
While the Portuguese could not make the difference after he came on, United do have Pogba back amongst the action, and Bruno Fernandes put in another encouraging performance.
Even so, their Turf Moor ordeal, whether caused by a curse or not, has left the Red Devils sixth in the table, having played one game more than Arsenal ahead of them, and two games more than Tottenham behind them.
Ralf Rangnick was left frustrated at having to settle for a point against Burnley (Image: GETTY)
Rangnick struggled to hide his frustration after the final whistle.
"At the end, it is a frustrating evening for us because we should have won that game easily after the first half and even the last 25 minutes we had full control and dominated the game but were not decisive enough as we were in the first half," he told BT Sport.
"I could not blame the team for not having a killer instinct in the first half but in the last 25 minutes we had a lot of set pieces.
"In the end, it was a little bit a case of luck with Raphael Varane, the header by Cristiano, Harry Maguire, but in the end one point for a performance like this is just not enough."