Following his teama s comprehensive 3-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday, Manchester United manager Louis Van Gaal was beaming.
The Dutchman had come under severe criticism after United suffered a defeat in the FA Cup quarterfinal to Arsenal at Old Trafford on Monday, and had been involved in a little bit of a tussle with the media too at a post-game press conference.
In this, Uniteda s first game since that defeat, Van Gaala s side were brilliant, putting three goals past Spurs goalkeeper Hugo Lloris by the 34th minute with Marouane Fellaini, Michael Carrick and Wayne Rooney all getting on the scorecard.
The 63-year-old, did, however, issue a word of caution for his team who play fierce rivals Liverpool at Anfield next Sunday.
“We’ve made a very big first step. But now we have to go to Liverpool who are also a competitor of ours,” he said.
“Maybe, apart from the first five minutes, we had control over the match.
“We scored beautiful goals, and didn’t give so much away. We played very well.”
England and United captain Rooney, who scored a wonderful goal by running past a couple of defenders and slotting home calmly, was under the spotlight after a video of him getting involved in a boxing match at his own house with Phil Bradsley appeared on the front page of The Sun. The 29-year-old put on an epic celebration following the win, perhaps to give it back to the media.
Following the game, Rooney was asked about the celebration and didna t seem too happy about the media meddling in his personal life.
a Friends messing around in a private house ends up on the front page of the newspaper. That’s the world we live in.a
a It didn’t bother me. I was just focusing on the game.a
His manager too echoed his sentiments by downplaying the incident at first and then by refusing to answer too many questions about it.
“In what a world we live that we are talking about such a thing – that a newspaper paid a lot for a video and I am answering questions about that,” he said.
“What is this world, twisted? I don’t want to answer questions about such things.”
Former Everton man Marouane Fellaini was adjudged the man of the match for his superb first goal and impressive overall contribution to that 3-0 win.