Wayne: We Must Improve

Wayne Rooney acknowledges that his United team-mates “must improve” in light of Sunday's disappointing Manchester derby defeat at the Etihad Stadium.

The Reds were outplayed for the first hour and ultimately beaten by goals scored at crucial times after Sergio Aguero and Yaya Toure gave City a commanding half-time lead, before further conversions from Aguero and Samir Nasri all-but sealed the win within five minutes of the restart.

Some pride was salvaged via Rooney's sublime free-kick in the 86th minute, a finish that capped a late improvement for United. But as he told MUTV, it was all a little too late. "It's not nice to lose to City by four goals to one. To lose by any score is bad, so we're all really disappointed."

"The way we conceded the goals, one just before half-time and two straight after, is not good enough. We know we have to improve on that, to stop giving these sloppy goals away and capitalise on some of our good play, which I thought there was bits of... it just came too late in the game.

"It was a blow (City's second) but we still thought we could get back in the game. We've been two down many times before and we came out at half-time ready to get the first goal and that would have been game on. The way in which we conceded two goals so quickly killed the game.

"We knew at 4-0 that we obviously weren't getting back into the game but we had to keep fighting and pressing, trying to make a game of it to show the fans, and ourselves, the pride we have as footballers as it's never nice to lose."

"I thought during the last twenty minutes we played some good stuff. Had we done that earlier there might have been a different outcome, but it was too little too late."

Although his goal provided some brief personal satisfaction, Rooney was more interested in the bigger picture and a disappointing result. Thankfully, as he explained, attention now turns to Wednesday's Capital One Cup clash with Liverpool, another huge occasion."

"It's nice to score but it means nothing," Wayne said. "The points were the most important thing today and we've come away with none. However, we've got a big game against Liverpool on Wednesday so we'll try and forget about today and move on in that game.

"We've all grown up - whether in Manchester, Liverpool or elsewhere in the world - with local football derbies and it's not nice when you lose one. I've been there myself as a fan and as a player it's never a nice moment. But thankfully we've got the game against Liverpool coming up Wednesday and it's something we are looking forward to now in the hope that we can get the victory to put this defeat to the back of our minds."