Wayne Rooney said that his team held an enquiry among themselves after their devastating 0-3 defeat against Liverpool and claims it helped them to hit back against Olympiakos on Wednesday.
United were spotted in the quarter-finals after their brilliant 3-0 wing against Olympiakos, but having lost by the same score against Liverpool three days earlier.
And Rooney also claimed that his team were broken and hit hard with their defeat to Brendan Rodgers side.
He went on to say: “All the players will admit Sunday was a devastating result for us. To lose 3-0 the way we did was hard to take and we had to stand up and show ourselves and really be at our best because that was not good enough. We have done that [against Olympiakos] but we have to kick on now and we have to give performances like that every week.”
He continued: “I’m not going to confirm the details of what happened but obviously we talk. We talk after every game, whether we win, lose or draw, but we knew as a team what went wrong on Sunday, we didn’t need anyone to tell us, and we came out and delivered a big performance.” Rooney had become David Moyes’ closet admirer and, when all the blames were pointed on him after the Liverpool loss, he felt he had to deliver something to the former Everton manager.
He explained: “I’ve said before our performances this season haven’t been good enough and we owe the manager a big performance, but we know as players we are better than what we’ve done this season. As a group we have to show that and put it right.”
He also went to talk about Robin Van Persie devastating hat-trick. “I think that just proves what a goalscorer he is. He has had critics over the last few weeks but he’s worked hard, like we all have, and to score a hat-trick when we needed it the most shows what a player he is. He’s a big-game player and we needed that.”