Manchester United 3-2 Tottenham Hotspur
A hat-trick from Cristiano Ronaldo lifted Manchester United against a direct rival for the Premier league fourth-place race. The Portuguese international played one of his best games of the season as Manchester with 50 points, stays one point behind Arsenal at 51 points; however the Gunners I have three games in hands.
Reactions from the coaches
Coach Rangnick – Manchester United:
“It was exactly the kind of reaction that we expected from the team after the poor performance in the second half against City. Coming back after two equalizers also showed the right mentality. We were really aggressive in those moments and also defended well in the last seven, eight minutes and in the end, I think we deserved to win.”
On Cristiano Ronaldo:
“He made the difference today for sure. But not only the three goals he scored but also his work-rate against the ball when Tottenham was in possession was so far the best performance. Let’s just hope that he stays fully fit for the rest of the season and we see further games like this one from the whole team and also from Cristiano.”
We’re still not in the best position because other teams have quite a few games in hand. Arsenal has four games in hand. For us, it was vital to win that game and this will also be the case with all our future, upcoming games. The next one is in almost three weeks against Leicester but now we are looking forward to another important game on Tuesday. Everybody in this city, every Man United fan, all the players, all the staff members, we want to proceed into the last eight of the Champions League. I think this game, and this result will give us a boost for the game on Tuesday.”
Coach Conte – Tottenham Hotspur
“We have to be disappointed because, after this type of performance, you deserve much more. At the same time, we have to be realistic and to know that twice we were good enough to come back here against United, in this stadium, in this atmosphere, that’s not easy, and we were good to do this.
“On the other hand, we have to improve with experience to manage parts of the game in the right way. The game is not only one game, during the game there are four or five games, and we have to try to manage that much better, to understand when we have to push a lot, when we have to increase the intensity, when we have to be calmer and to keep possession of the ball, not to be hurried in our decisions. I think in this aspect we have a lot of space for improvement.
