Sir Alex revels in United romp

"Our best ever" was Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson's appraisal of the 7-1 quarter-final second-leg victory over Roma which sent the two-time European champions into the semi-finals for the first time in five years. The Scot reserved special praise for his young stars Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo, who "played like men" after being overawed during the 2005 first knockout round loss to AC Milan. Meanwhile, Roma coach Luciano Spalletti called on his players to "react positively" to their Old Trafford humbling. UEFA.com rounds up the reaction from Manchester.

Sir Alex Ferguson, Manchester United manager
It was our best ever – a fantastic performance by every one of our players. You never expect a scoreline like 7-1. The speed of our play and our penetration was absolutely superb. The quality of our game was so high that once we scored two or three, we thought there was going to be something big here. The atmosphere was fantastic and I'm sure the crowd will maintain that now they can see they have a team worth getting behind. I think the early goal gave us the advantage – it put them on the back foot and the speed of our play gave them all sorts of problems. The team now has to go on and win something. The way they're playing their football, they deserve to; I'm enjoying it. This points the way ahead. Two years ago against AC Milan, Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo were young boys, but tonight they played like men.

Luciano Spalletti, Roma coach
We suffered quite a bit from a lack of experience. We started off quite well but with their first attack they scored. We tried to get back into the game too soon and this played into their hands. It seemed every shot they had from the edge of the area ended up in the net. In the first leg we showed we could compete with this team but we need to work harder in certain areas. Today we got it wrong, and Manchester United deserved their victory because of the way they played. The important thing for us is to react positively after this result. It's easy to be positive after a victory.