Soccer:Alex Ferguson believes Wayne Rooney proved on Saturday that there is no need to leave him on the bench again in Romania tonight. Rooney was surprisingly omitted from the Manchester United starting line-up to face Liverpool at the weekend.

Ferguson took the decision as the striker was "devastated" at picking up a three-match ban that would rule him out of the entire European Championships if England fail to emerge from their group.

But, introduced straight after Steven Gerrard opened the scoring at Anfield, Rooney used a central midfield role to help trigger a comeback. And the England star will be involved from the start as United look to find winning form in the Champions League when they tackle Otelul Galati.

"When he came on he was quite bubbly," said Ferguson. "He was full of energy and enthusiasm. He was desperate to get on, which is good. When he was sat watching the game he probably said, 'Christ I could be out there'. He'll be playing."

Rooney will decide later this week whether to launch an appeal against the three-match ban, which stunned Ferguson, who labelled the striker's challenge in Montenegro "silly but not seriously dangerous".

And his United team-mates have obviously decided now is not the time to trigger an in-depth dressing room discussion about the matter.

"Wayne has a lot of experience," said midfielder Park Ji-sung. "We don't tell him what he has to do. It wasn't a good action but he played very well when he came on at the weekend. Wayne will show what he has to do on the pitch."

Under normal circumstances, a trip to face the ailing Romanian champions, sandwiched in between key Premier League fixtures against Liverpool and Manchester City would be the cue for Ferguson to rest many of his senior players.

As it turned out, the one player Ferguson did leave at home, other than currently injured duo Tom Cleverley and Rafael, was Rio Ferdinand given United have so far picked up only two points from their opening couple of games, ensuring all thoughts of the impending confrontation with the blue half of Manchester are set aside.

"Against Basle we became very complacent and it's not a tournament where you can afford to be complacent," said Ferguson. "We have to win, so I'll play a strong team. But I can play several teams and they would still be strong enough to win the game.”