The United manager, who insists he is taking the attitude that as far as he is concerned the 6-1 defeat by Manchester City is "completely forgotten - it never happened", is banking on Rooney turning it on against his old club. Rooney has been vilified by Everton fans in the past and in one previous Goodison Park match Ferguson admitted he had to substitute the England striker for fear the crowd would get him sent off. Ferguson said: "I don't think the players will goad him, there has not been any history of that when we have played Everton, he seems to get on well with their players. "But you know what fans are like, he's a traitor as far as they are concerned and that's never going to change. "He's had mixed success going to Everton. He's scored a couple of goals in previous games and gets booed as normal. "He got booked in one game and I took him off because he'd been booked and there was no way I was going to give the referee an opportunity to send him off. "That's where the hype around the ground in terms of him getting booed every time he makes a challenge comes into it. "He's had mixed fortunes there but he's scored a couple of goals and done well in some of the games and hopefully that will be the case tomorrow." United have shown in the past one heavy defeat need not be the end of their title campaign - they famously lost 5-0 to Newcastle in 1996 but ended up cruising to the title - but Ferguson admitted the club has been suffering from the drubbing by City at Old Trafford last Sunday. He added: "It's been a tough week for everyone. It was a bad result but we have to get over it - the fans, players, employees, staff - everyone was involved in the disappointment. We must kick on. We enjoyed Tuesday night [at Aldershot] but we need to show ourselves tomorrow. "You can analyse it as much as you want but it's not going to do us any good. My attitude is to completely forget it - it never happened. "It's not going to do us any good going back over it. "What can happen is we can show Manchester United in its proper light. We didn't do that last week but we can do that tomorrow. "We have done that pretty well over the years, we lost 5-0 to Newcastle and won the league by 10 or 11 points. "We have the experiences of having recovered many, many times and that's what you have to do when you are a club like United. "Expectation lives with us every minute of our lives and we are used to that." Statistics show United have allowed more shots on target than any other club in the top flight but Ferguson refused to be drawn on the reasons behind that. He said only: "I can't deny the stats - because of the modern life we live in you can't dispute it. We are aware of it."
