Darren Fletcher believes he and his Manchester United team-mates must not rely solely upon Wayne Rooney to score goals if they are to recapture the Premier League title this season.

Rooney scored 43 goals in all competitions as United were pipped to the title by Chelsea, but Fletcher says it would be wrong to expect the England striker to repeat that feat – particularly after a torrid World Cup campaign.

"There was a lot of pressure on Wayne to score all the goals last season and he took that burden on," Fletcher said, at a question and answer session with pupils at Irlam Primary School near Manchester.

"But sometimes that does not happen. All strikers go though phases when they do not score goals and that is when it is important that everyone steps up and does their bit.

"As a team we have to improve every season. I think we saw that Nani and [Luis Antonio] Valencia improved last year, and they are young, so they will get better. But even [Paul] Scholes and [Ryan] Giggs are trying to improve, and so am I, and so are the rest of the team."

Fletcher, the Scotland captain, said United will have to improve after a "transition season".

"Maybe last season we went through a period of transition, though you don't realise it at the time," the 26-year-old said.

"We lost some world-class players and other players came in. But we still managed to win the Carling Cup and stay in the league right until the end, while we were very unfortunate in the Champions League. We will learn from the things that went wrong and go one step further next year."