Sir Alex sings United's praises

Sir Alex Ferguson believes Manchester United FC's victory against Chelsea FC in the all-English UEFA Champions League is to their "great credit", singling out Ryan Giggs and Wayne Rooney for special praise as his side reached the last four for the fourth time in five years. The defeated Carlo Ancelotti could only bemoan the visitors' failure to capitalise on their promising start as he reflected on more UEFA Champions League disappointment for his club.

Sir Alex Ferguson, Manchester United manager
The whole team have played with great credit. It was a very tough game, Chelsea played well for a lot of the game and we played well for most of it too. We had two teams picked tonight, hopefully I picked the right one. The other option was to play Park [Ji-Sung] in Wayne's position and put Wayne up front and leave [Javier Hernández] out. But that's where you get luck, because he scored the first goal.

We've said it so many times; Ryan Giggs is incredible, a unique person and player. He made a big contribution to the goal in the first game, and tonight. He had a part in the second goal too. So it's a great contribution and his experience and composure were vital. He's lucky he's got the physique, he doesn't carry any weight and never has. He's always had great balance and he's never lost that; he looks after himself – he has to. To play until 37 years of age, it must be a tremendous sacrifice.

I think for quite a while [Rooney's] been playing well. He's enjoying the position he's playing because it's giving him a lot of freedom to use his energy, and in that position you do need that. I'll watch the semi-final tomorrow night. Schalke should get through really, but it's still interesting to watch and you never know; football is strange. But I would think  Schalke should get through.

Carlo Ancelotti, Chelsea manager
We started well. We had control and in the first 30 minutes we were good; good possession, good attacking play. The last ten minutes of the first half was more difficult; they had more opportunities, scored a goal and in the second half it was difficult to come back. We tried obviously, but with ten men it was really hard.

We're out of the Champions League, this is not good for us. We are disappointed, but this is football. We have to be able to look forward because we have other games to play and to win if possible, because obviously every one of us wants to play in the Champions League next season.