Manchester United centre-back Chris Smalling is hoping that his side's second-half recovery in the FA Cup clash with West Ham United will prove to be a catalyst for the Red Devils for the rest of the season.
United fought back in Sunday's cup tie to force a replay, through Anthony Martial's 83rd-minute equalizer, after falling behind to a superb free-kick from Dimitri Payet.
Smalling believes that the performance in the second lot of 45 minutes will restore confidence in the United camp ahead of two crucial fixtures this week - the Europa League tie with Liverpool and the league derby with Manchester City.
He said: "To go 1-0 down, and with everything against us from the previous two results, then to show some character and fight and really push for the winner at the end hopefully does boost us.
"We have got two massive games now and more often than not we turn up for those sort of games. It's not impossible on Thursday but we can't afford any slip-ups and we need to start against Liverpool how we played in the second half on Sunday.
"We talk a lot about starting games strong and more often than not we've done that this season. But against West Ham we didn't do it. We grew as the game went on though and in the second half we were a lot better."
