Rooney champing at the bit

Wayne Rooney was pleased with the “a point gained” at Stamford Bridge and believes that, with one of United’s toughest spells of the season behind them, the Reds must now build up a significant run of form.

“It’s definitely a point gained,” Rooney told MUTV. “Chelsea’s record at Stamford Bridge is really good and, although we were leading for most of the game and it was disappointing to lose the goal, it’s still a good point. We had the better of the game in the first half but Chelsea were better in the second half. A draw was probably a fair result.”

Losing to Liverpool does not gain favour with Rooney at the best of times, but the manner of last week's 2-1 defeat cut deep. “We were all disappointed,” he said. “It was a terrible display, but against Villarreal I thought we deserved to win, and against Chelsea we showed at times what a good football team we can be.

“We knew it was going to be a tough start to the season – we had three of our toughest away games in the first four matches. Liverpool, Chelsea and Portsmouth away are all tough. But we’ve got them out of the way now and hopefully we can go on a good run, get some wins under our belts and some points on the table.”

The return of Cristiano Ronaldo, who played more than half an hour at Chelsea, and the bedding in of Dimitar Berbatov also bode well. “It’s a huge boost for us to have Cristiano back,” said Rooney. “He’s a great player and hopefully he can get a few games in the next few weeks. That will give him fitness and he’ll start to produce what we know he is capable of.

"With Dimitar, he’s a new player and we had some good touches together. I’m sure the partnership will get better the more we play together and, of course, with Carlos Tevez to come in as well.”