Rooney broke the deadlock on the stroke of halftime with a close-range shot, however; his slip-up enabled the hosts to restore parity one minute from the hour mark.

The England international's awkward pass was intercepted and eventually Hull were awarded a penalty-kick which Craig Fagan converted to cancel out the Red Devils' slender lead.

But later on, Rooney atoned for his mistake to set up two more goals and give United a vital victory.

"Obviously when they got the equalizer it was a mistake by myself and thankfully we got the win, or I don't think the manager would have been too pleased with me," the 24-year-old told Sky Sports 1.

"It wasn't a nice feeling, I didn't want to let the lads down and at the time it looked like that but it happens and we got the win in the end."

Now United are in second place with 40 points, two adrift of leaders Chelsea who won only one league game out of their last five.

"I think it's a mad league, a lot of teams are dropping points and it's really close. Hopefully we can be more consistent in the second half (of the season) and retain our title," Rooney added.

"We knew it was a big game. We had some good breaks and thankfully we got some goals at the end.

"It was quite open. Hull committed a lot of men forward and it did leave us spaces to counter-attack."