Man Utd No2 Phelan lifts lid on balloon shocker

Manchester United assistant boss Mike Phelan has lifted the lid on his infamous balloon incident at Chelsea on Sunday.

He told MUTV: Everybody has asked me about the incident. It’s just one of those things – there were two balloons floating around in the dug-out and I wanted to get rid of them. It’s lucky for the boss I didn’t burst both balloons! It certainly shocked him. I think it shocked him into action.

"As for the game itself, we started well and we were the better team for the first 45 minutes. To get into the position of leading in the match was terrific.

"After the break we lost a bit of rhythm, but sometimes you expect that against Chelsea. They’re a fine side and they put us under pressure.

"For a while we coped with that pressure. But we weren’t forthright enough in our approach to winning the game. We’ve got to be greedy and demand results, as well as entertain and play good football.

"In the end we didn’t get what we wanted in terms of three points, but we came away with one point and all in all we can be satisfied with that."