Beating Blues Means More

For all the pre-match talk playing down the significance of the Community Shield, Chris Smalling admitted Sunday's victory carried an added edge because it came at the expense of Manchester City.

The defender, who shone at right-back and scored the Reds' all-important first goal just after half-time, conceded that he hopes the dramatic win will give United an edge ahead of the next Manchester derby.

"They say it is a friendly but against City it is never going to be a friendly," he admitted. "So for us to get this opportunity, in the 93rd minute, to dagger those hearts... hopefully next time we go we’ll have an edge over them.

It was a great feeling. We were a bit unfortunate in the first-half, I felt we played well in the first half an hour, but it was unfortunate that they were a bit more clinical. In the second-half the manager stressed that we should get the ball down and take our chances, and we put on a great show.

"It’s a great impetus for the new season. It’s a great big trophy and it’s really heavy. It will be nice to take back to Manchester but there are bigger things to win. Hopefully we can kick on from this."

Smalling revealed that, despite conceding twice late on in the first period, the United dressing room was in composed mood at the interval, and the defender benefited from Sir Alex's advice in scoring his vital goal.

"No one was really down because, even though they had scored two goals, we knew we were the better team so it was important that we got that first goal and we went on from there," he said.

"The manager said they were doing some zonal marking so it was just about getting into the right spaces. I had a little look at the linesman and luckily the flag didn’t go up and it set us on our way."

Happy to help outFrom centre-back to goalscoring full-back, Chris Smalling is just delighted to be involved in any capacity...

"Centre-back is my main position but if I can contribute from a different position and if the manager things I can help, then hopefully the more games I get the happier I’ll be."

- Chris Smalling