Wayne Rooney believes Manchester United will need to attack Chelsea if they want to claim the UEFA Champions League.
United boss Sir Alex Ferguson is considering how to approach the game with Chelsea – but Rooney insists their best strategy would be to go on the offensive tonight.
“If we go in there negatively and defensively, Chelsea have a good enough team to punish us,” Rooney said.
“We just have to relax and play the free-flowing football we have played most of the season.
“We said when we got to the final how good it would be to beat an English team, but also how much it would hurt if we lost.
“To get so close and if we didn’t manage to win it, particularly to an English team like Chelsea, would be a nightmare.
“We’re meeting up with the Chelsea players a couple of days later with England, so defeat would be pretty difficult to take.
“Opportunities like this don’t come around very often, so you have to do everything you can to make the most of them. And that’s what we intend to do.”
The 22-year-old feels he is due to take revenge on Chelsea.
“I hope it’s payback time against Chelsea,” said Rooney.
“It’s the same thing with Portugal. I’ve had a few ups and a few downs against both of them in recent years.
“I broke my foot at Chelsea, we lost to them in the FA Cup Final, then I hurt my hip last time we played them, so I’ve got some bad memories there.
“But, hopefully, this experience will turn out to be a good one. Our games against Chelsea are always close – but we have to go into this one confident and ready to try and deal with whatever they throw at us.”
