Wayne Rooney inspires Manchester United to a comprehensive victory

A Wayne Rooney special goal to couple it with an assist and some brilliant individual performances on a European night.

The Red devils were absolutely lethal in the night.

It was one of the important games to stay in hunt for a place in last 32 and Manchester United just played like that.

The hunger to score, the eagerness to get the ball every time it was with opponents, it was the kind of performance one expects to see from a United team.

Wayne Rooney was the star of the night, as he broke European goal scoring record for Manchester United.

As soon as he chipped the goalkeeper to open the scoring in the 35th minute, a move which he started himself and finished, he went past Ruud van Nisterlooy of scoring most goals in European competitions for Manchester United. He now moves to 39 goals.

Rooney assisted another for Juan Mata to score with a sublime reverse pass to make it 2-0 for United in 70th minute. Manchester United look ever hungry to score goals as  they added two more, an own goal from goalkeeper Brad Jones, trying to save a Zlatan Ibrahimovic shot and a stunning finish from substitute Jese Lingard in the dying minutes of the match.

Manchester United had 12 shots on target, most in Mourinho's era till now.
It's also the biggest win since the arrival of José Mourinho.

One player who proved himself on the night was Henrikh Mkhitaryan. He displayed an absolutely brilliant individual performance like he did all the time in Germany.
He got heavily involved in a number of chances and deserved a goal to his name but unfortunately didn't. He showed Mourinho what he had been missing. 

A player of his calibre deserves to start and even José Mourinho agreed in the post match conference.

Read what Mourinho had to say on Wayne Rooney's record breaking goal, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and more.

"It's an amazing achievement obviously," Mourinho said of Rooney at his post-match media conference.

"His performance was like the team performance. We showed direction even at 1-0 up, we want to score more goals and get into a position where we are ahead of them in a situation where there are two or three teams on the same points.

"It will be even better if he can help the club to win the one trophy they don't have in their history which is the Europa League.

"I know it's not the biggest competition, but let's push. Let's qualify, I know there are a lot of knockout games, but let's try."

Mourinho heaped praise on Mkhitaryan too.

Mourinho said: "I am very happy. We coped very well with the pressure on our shoulders - it was a good solid performance.

"Some players had chances, like Sergio Romero who made a double save at 0-0 and Mkhitaryan who put in a good individual performance.

"I think now Mkhitaryan just has to replicate this kind of performance in the Premier League.

"The Premier League is a level higher and he needs to replicate that in the Premier League with more physicality, with more pressure.

"But the quality we knew - that was why we brought him to the club. He has great quality."

And about Jese Lingard's superb late goal.

He added: "The goal was amazing. If it is another team scoring that goal with another manager on the touchline people would say that it's magic. But not Man United and not a Mourinho team."

It felt great to see Manchester United get back to winning ways in a must win game.

This performance if replicated in Premier league will surely make it even more exciting.

©sportskafun.blogspot.com