Schneiderlin: Team Spirit Was Key To Win

Morgan Schneiderlin believes Manchester United’s team spirit could become an indispensable weapon in the UEFA Champions League after the Reds came from behind to beat Wolfsburg.

Wednesday’s match at Old Trafford was widely described as a must-win encounter for Louis van Gaal’s men following a previous defeat at PSV Eindhoven and, despite conceding in just the fourth minute, victory was eventually secured thanks to goals from Juan Mata and Chris Smalling.

It was Schneiderlin’s first taste of the Champions League group stage and the France international thoroughly enjoyed the occasion, but more importantly he was pleased to pick up three points.

“It was very important, we knew it was a must-win after the PSV Eindhoven result and that is what we did,” Morgan told MUTV. “We’re happy with the win, but we fought hard until the end because the last 20 minutes were very hard when Wolfsburg gave everything, but we kept the score.

“We knew Wolfsburg is a great team with great players. We were aware of that and we conceded a goal, but we kept our composure and I think we had many chances in the first half to level the score and that is what we did. In the second half we quickly went 2-1 up. After that Wolfsburg put everything at us and that was hard for us, but we got the win and that is the most important thing.

“Yeah it was a big game and a game where I and we can improve. It was a big game against a big team from Europe and we are very happy to play in this stage of football and we want to go through to keep our dream alive. We want to see how far we can go. If we can keep this team spirit and if we keep improving like we have done since the start of the season, then why not?”

Daley Blind produced another accomplished performance on Wednesday, playing the majority of the match at centre-back prior to finishing in midfield, and the Dutchman also spoke highly of United's team spirit.

“We created some great chances, but it was still 1-1 at half-time and after that we scored to make it 2-1 very quickly," he told MUTV. "After that it was just about fighting for each ball in every moment, the team spirit was very high to win for each other and it was a very important three points."

Even though United were perhaps guilty of missing several goal scoring chances on Wednesday, the Reds were deserving winners in the end and are now unbeaten in four matches across all competitions. Van Gaal feels his team is improving week-by-week and Schneiderlin agrees with the boss.

“I do feel we are improving,” Morgan said. “At the start of the season people were talking about good results and not very good performances. In the last few weeks I don’t hear this anymore, they don’t complain about the style of play or anything and that is because we have improved.

“We can see that on the training pitch and we can see that in the games. We are much better on the ball, we are doing better things and something we play very high quality football. But there are still some things we can improve.”