Englishman had previously been ruled out for three weeks by his manager.
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Manchester United head coach David Moyes has defended his decision to play front man Wayne Rooney against newly promoted Crystal Palace in the Premier League at Old Trafford on Saturday afternoon, according to reports in the Sunday Telegraph.
The England international had not expected to feature against Ian Holloway’s side after suffering an horrific head injury in training two weeks ago when team-mate Phil Jones accidentally kicked Rooney in the forehead, leaving the 27-year-old with a nasty-looking three-inch gash.
As a result of that incident at Carrington on Aug 31, Rooney was forced to sit out the Premier League champions’ visit to arch-rivals Liverpool the following day, as well as England’s two subsequent FIFA World Cup qualifiers against Moldova at Wembley, followed by the crucial trip to Ukraine last Tuesday.
In fact, after Rooney had been released back to the Red Devils by the Three Lions medical staff, United said that the striker would be out of action for as long as three weeks, even making his participation in next Sunday’s Manchester derby at the Etihad Stadium a major doubt.
That is, though, until Rooney made a dramatic and unexpected comeback against the Eagles, with the Englishman even getting his name on the score-sheet with a brilliant second-half free-kick to help United to a comfortable 2-0 win.
And Moyes explained after the match that Rooney was only able to play because of the use of a specially made headband that helped to protect the wound.
“It was a difficult decision,” said Moyes. “We were going to see how he felt with it, but until Friday we hadn’t even got it. In my mind he’s been training great, so I felt that if he could wear it then we would try and get him out [for Saturday’s game].”