Rooney said: "Obviously it has been a disappointing week for England but Manchester United performed well at Villa and I've been scoring lately and hopefully I can continue that.

"We knew the other results before we played and we knew we had to get the three points. We didn't have the best of starts. Their two forwards harassed our defence and did really well.

"But we got going and Carlos (Tevez) is a great player. I can play as the one going in behind or looking for the ball in behind and Carlos can do the same so we can switch quite easily."

Only Stuart Taylor's penalty save denied Rooney a third hat-trick for United, who chalked up a seventh successive league win despite conceding their first league goal for 611 minutes.

Rooney said: "What happened is why I probably don't take the penalties every week! I take them in training and normally just smash them in so I don't know what happened there."

Villa were already well beaten before midfielder Nigel Reo-Coker and goalkeeper Scott Carson were sent off in the second half as they paid for some poor defending.

Carson said: "Rooney is in incredible form. He has been in the right place at the right time for the last few weeks and he has taken his goals well.

"It takes a bit of character after that disappointment England suffered in Russia but we are all professionals and you have got to get on with things.

"We were chasing the game trying in the second half to rescue things. There was no point just sitting back and defending so I'm not going to blame anyone for what happened.

"We are not happy with the first two goals we let in but the defenders have been superb all of this season so we can't really complain.

"If you look at the first half, we were the best team but you can't give Manchester United chances like we did because they will take them. They have top class players."