Humble Van Persie praises United team-mates

After taking the Player Rater award for the two-goal performance which earned Manchester United FC a 2-1 victory at CFR 1907 Cluj, Robin van Persie refused to take the credit, instead emphasising the contribution of returning team-mate Wayne Rooney. The Dutch international believed United deserved to recover from falling behind early on, while CFR's Gabriel Mureşan was left to rue the mistakes which cost his side a famous victory.

Robin van Persie, Manchester United forward
We all deserve to be the man of the match. We played really well; Rooney played very well, he gave me two excellent assists and it is really good that he is back. We passed it well, but at times it was very tough, because CFR are a very good team. We knew that they tried to pass and move. Finally, we are happy with the result and with the way we played.

I couldn't say why we won. 'Because we scored one goal more,' would be the easiest answer. But importantly, we scored at a vital moment. We scored early in the second half and this changed the whole game. Afterwards we could keep the ball and wait for the counterattacks. I think that it is always important to score early [in the second half] and if you do that, you are then in the control of the game. That is what happened today.

Gabriel Mureșan, CFR midfielder
I am very disappointed about the defeat. What can I say? Two mistakes meant two goals and that was it. And when I speak about mistakes, I mean collective lapses, not individual errors. They won first of all because they had more possession and knew how to profit from it. We had our chances as well, but we were not able to deal with United and conceded two goals very easily. As I said, we made two childish mistakes, though for the rest of the game we played well. This was the difference. I am sorry about the defeat. We had the chance to get a good result, but we cannot feel too down, because we played against Manchester United.

Modou Sougou, CFR forward
The match was very difficult, because Manchester United are a big team that always keep the ball and put their opponents under pressure. We tried to play on the counterattack and scored the goal, but they came and pressed us. It would have been excellent if it had been 1-0 at half-time because maybe we could have defended that lead, but it was not possible and now we will have to get a positive result in Istanbul and win at home, which would give us a chance to qualify. After I jumped, I felt a pain in my leg, I tried to carry on, but I could not and asked to be taken off.