Practice Makes Perfect

It was a case of practice makes perfect for Darron Gibson as United secured a passage through to the Carling Cup semi-finals with a 2-0 victory over Tottenham Hotspur at Old Trafford.

The Irishman struck two scorchers from the edge of the area in the first half and revealed afterwards that the team's hard work in training had certainly paid off.

“We’ve been working in training all week on getting shots off in and around the box and it worked tonight with the two goals”, Gibson told MUTV.

“For the second, Berba got in on the left and passed it to me. I played a one-two with Welbeck and stroked it in. I didn’t try to hit it hard, I just placed it and luckily it went in.”

The Irish midfielder was pleased with his overall performance, but feels there is still room for improvement.

“I think I played quite well. I gave the ball away a few times so I could have done better in that sense,” he admitted.

“We knew Spurs were going to play a strong team because it’s one of the few competitions they can win this year. But we knew if we played well we could get a result.

“They are established Premier League players and I think there was pressure on the youngsters to prove we are good enough to play at their level.

“I think we showed we’re capable of doing that and overall we deserved the win.”

Gibson’s goals came at a good time in the game, as before the first, Spurs were looking like the better side. He felt his opening strike settled the nerves and gave the team the impetus to dominate the remainder of the tie.

“They started very well and were on top but when I scored the first we started to pass the ball and relax a bit more and the second one calmed us down a lot. In the second half I think we controlled the game."