Manchester United striker Robin van Persie was proud of their first goal in victory over Liverpool. Although his was a fine finish to break the deadlock, van Persie was quick to credit the build-up play from his team-mates and expressed his belief that the Reds could have scored more goals during a dominant first-half display at Old Trafford.

"It was an unbelievable goal with great combinations," Van Persie told MUTV. "Michael Carrick was involved, Danny Welbeck was involved, as well as Tom [Cleverley] and Shinji [Kagawa], and then it went out on the left to Pat, who put a really good cross in and it was a good finish. It was a great goal - especially the build-up.

"Everybody felt the importance of this fixture during the week and we are really happy with the result. We had a good first half and it should have been more than 1-0 in my opinion.

"In the second half, Liverpool played for all or nothing with lots of attackers so we had to dig in and fight for each other, helping each other out where possible. We did that and we fought hard. We got the result we wanted."