Manchester United striker and England International gave a stern warning to teammates not to get complacent ahead of the English Premiership clash between the Red Devils and the Blues Chelsea later today.
He said Manchester United must not give lapses for an early goal against the European champions.
Chelsea,surprise winners of last season’s UEFA champions league competition sent out a note of warning to fellow clubs that the new season will be different following their victory in the champions league, as owner Abramovich went on extravagant shopping spree to get the signature of best of the best in the round-leather game and recruited Oscar and Eden Hazard in the off-season for a combined fee of almost 60 million pounds, joining Juan Mata in attack playing just behind Fernando Torres – and the combination has proved to be formidable so far.
Rooney has emphasized the need for United to prevent early goals from the blow of the whistle as they are being hosted in Stamford Bridge by an in-form Chelsea team.
Rooney said it would be better if United can prevent such early goals which will count against them because coming to get equalizers are sometimes very difficult against best teams like Chelsea and this happened against Braga in the Champions League during the week but United was lucky to get back into the game and win it.
Rooney continued that although last season United was able to pull it off against the Blues when they went 3-0 down before they drew, but he is not sure that United can pull it off again if that happens this time as United cannot afford to be going one or two goals down against Chelsea away as it has new crop of talented players now.
He said “Mata is a great player and Hazard has settled in really well in his first season so I think those two along with Torres are the three biggest threats.
“It’s a great start and it’s clear having won the Champions League last season it has given them a lot more confidence, they have brought a lot of new players in and added more speed to the team,” Rooney said.
Chelsea is undefeated in the League, winning seven of their eight games whilst drawing the other against QPR.