Rooney: We're Making It Difficult

Wayne Rooney lamented Manchester United's lack of quality in the final third against Everton - and bemoaned the way the Reds "are making it hard for ourselves" in matches.

Despite enjoying long periods of possession at Goodison Park, United conceded twice before the break and struggled to create chances in front of goal thereafter. After captaining the Reds in the absence of the injured Patrice Evra and Nemanja Vidic, Rooney said the Reds must cut down on defensive errors in order to improve.

“We're obviously disappointed with the result," he told MUTV. "I thought that in the first half we moved the ball well, but we just didn’t penetrate enough.

"We moved the ball quite well and they were struggling to get near us at times, but we just had to try to break them down. They sat quite deep, so we might have needed more width or more runners in behind to create space but it was a difficult game.

"Everyone knows that it’s a difficult place to come and Everton made it difficult for us by putting bodies behind the ball, but we conceded two really sloppy goals which we need to cut out because we’re making it hard for ourselves to get back into games.

"Obviously, once they got the first goal we knew it would be tough and the second goal was a big blow. It’s not nice when you concede just before half time at a place like this. Everton are in good form and they've got a lot of confidence so we knew it would be hard. We knew that if we got a goal after half time we could put them under pressure, but unfortunately it didn't come.

“I think for the first goal, the ball obviously hit Phil Jones' hand, so we went behind to a penalty when we had control of the game. For the second one, we should have stopped the counter attack first of all. They ran in behind us and in fairness, it was a good finish, but it’s not good enough [from us].”

Rooney had a good chance to spark a United comeback when he went one-on-one with former Reds team-mate Tim Howard late on, but the striker saw his shot well saved by the Everton goalkeeper.

“I just tried to lift it over him," explained Wayne.

"I know Tim’s game and he usually goes down quite quickly. After watching videos of him, I just thought that if I could lift the ball over him, he would go down but he managed to get something on it, so I’m not too pleased with that.

"Overall, the result is a real disappointment to us."