Sir Alex salutes adaptable United

Sir Alex Ferguson praised his Manchester United FC side for adapting to FC Dynamo Kyiv's style and breaking them down in order to qualify for the knockout stage, while hailing young defender Gerard Piqué as a player of "great stature". In his first match as temporary coach of the Ukrainian side, Oleh Luzhny bemoaned his side's lack of "discipline and organisation" that led to their group stage elimination.

Sir Alex Ferguson, Manchester United manager
It was a very good game for the young players as they came up against a different system to what they are used to with three centre-halves. They found the first 20 minutes tough in terms of opening up the game although it did after the goal which was headed in by Piqué. The second goal was a great piece of football and great skill between Carlos Tévez and Wayne Rooney. The second half we could have scored more, but then equally we could have conceded goals as Tomasz Kuszczak had to make a great save just after half-time. They were very defensive and very organised and it is difficult and somewhat tedious to break teams like this down. They clearly came with a plan to make sure they were not embarrassed. Piqué was fantastic tonight and proved again what we think about him here - he is a boy of great stature who can play in central midfield, right-back or his natural position of centre-half. Given the way we experimented last year and were embarrassed, we want to beat Sporting [Clube de Portugal] to win the group.

Oleh Luzhny, Dynamo coach
With regards to the general play there was not enough discipline and organisation from us. That said, we should have scored but failed to find the net. There were injuries during yesterday's training session that forced me to play some of the older players but from my point of view those that came in played very well. This is not the end for us as we still have to play games at home to [AS] Roma and away to Sporting. We will try our best in those games and see how it goes.