Rooney delighted to be back in the goals

Wayne Rooney insists he was not worried about his 10-match run without a goal after he plundered a hat-trick in Manchester United’s 4-0 win at Club Brugge.

The England captain went 878 minutes without finding the net for United before his 20th-minute opener in Wednesday’s UEFA Champions League play-off second-leg tie.

Rooney went on to complete his treble in the second half, before Ander Herrera rounded off the scoring as United secured their place in Thursday’s draw for the group stages with a 7-1 aggregate success.

“I’m delighted to get the goals, and more importantly it was good to go through to the group stage,” Rooney told BT Sport.

“If I didn’t have a strong character, it [talk of the drought] would have affected me, but I know my quality and what I give to the team and if the goals don’t go in I still do it for my team-mates.

“I wasn’t worried. If it had gone on three, four, five games more then maybe but it’s still early days.

“As a striker obviously you want to score but everyone goes back to last season and ‘so many games you didn’t score’ and makes a big thing of it.

“But I’ve understood because of who I am it gets publicised a lot more but it’s part of my job and I have to accept that.

“It was a big disappointment last year not to challenge in it [the Champions League] and coming here we didn’t think it was going to be as comfortable as it was but it was vital we went through and over the two legs we deserved it.

“We’ll enjoy the draw and it’s nice to be back in the draw again.”