Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson felt Wayne Rooney was always going to struggle in the Euros.

Having worked with Rooney for eight years now, he always felt that lengthy gap between his star man scoring for United in their last-day win over Sunderland and his opening salvos of Euro 2012 might present an insurmountable barrier.

"I always thought it was difficult," said Ferguson.

"We know him better than anybody and he needs a lot of football.

"Wayne's a stocky lad. If he misses a couple of games, it takes him three or four to come back and he didn't play from his last game (for United) on May 13 until the third game of the Euros more than a month later."

In fact, Rooney did manage a 37-minute friendly appearance against Belgium in between.

However, when England needed a big performance from their talisman against Italy, Ferguson detected tiredness from his outing against Ukraine.

"He didn't look as sharp as normal," said Ferguson.

"It is very hard to play two big games in four days."