Robson: Senior Reds Deserve Credit Too

Former Manchester United captain Bryan Robson is thrilled by the way Marcus Rashford has fired his way into the headlines but, as he told ManUtd.com on Monday, the club ambassador wants the experienced players who performed well against Arsenal to share the spotlight...

The way the young players have come in and performed for the last couple of games is terrific for the club and terrific for the young lads but my feelings are that the experienced players deserve a lot of credit as well.

I just thought that, considering all the injuries we've got, all the experienced lads were excellent yesterday. David De Gea, Michael Carrick, Daley Blind, Ander Herrera, Juan Mata and Morgan Schneiderlin - they all put in good performances. I thought all of those lads had really good games, which created a good, steady centre of the field and a platform for the young boys to go and inject their energy and enthusiasm into the game. It shouldn't go amiss that the experienced lads did really well yesterday.

We all love the kids to come through the ranks and do great. We're always looking for the next Giggsy and Scholesy and that's quite right because Manchester United has always been associated with young boys coming through and becoming outstanding players. But I just thought that the likes of Michael Carrick deserved a mention for their performances yesterday. Many of them are playing out of position as well and they did a terrific job for the team.

IDEAL ATTRIBUTES FOR A CENTRE-BACK

Michael reads the game really well - that's his major strength - and he's a great passer of the ball. It's the same with Daley Blind and, while not they're not the biggest or the quickest players, they can do a great job for you at centre-back because they're great readers of the game and they're such good passers.

Chris Smalling is still a big miss to us, especially from set-plays. But yesterday I thought the team did well on set-plays, where you might have thought there'd be a problem after losing a lot of our big physical lads.

MORGAN IN THE MIDDLE

I thought that was probably one of Morgan Schneiderlin's best games for us, just breaking up the play from Arsenal, who have got some outstanding players in the midfield area. I thought he did a terrific job protecting the back four, getting on the ball and providing the team with a good solid base and a springboard to attack from. That worked really well for us.

DE GEA KEPT THE DEADLOCK

David De Gea's big moment in the game was inside the first 10 minutes, when he stood up and made the one-on-one save to stop [Nacho] Monreal. That kept the score at 0-0 but other than that David didn't have much to do because of the good work that was being done in front of him. I think he would prefer it that way and, with all due respect to him, you don't really want your goalkeeper to win Player of the Year three times on the bounce!

SELECTION HEADACHE... COMING SOON

When the injured players start coming back, hopefully the manager will have a massive headache over who to pick because the kids have done really well and kept it going. Now it's the manager's decision as to whether he leaves the kids in, because they're still getting good results and performing well, or whether he brings the experienced players back in. But that is a problem that I'm sure Louis van Gaal's going to relish having. Hopefully for the fans' sake as well, he is going to have that problem.

MARCH WILL BE A MAJOR MONTH

It's important we maintain the momentum now to stay in touch for that fourth place in the league and, for the players' confidence, to stay in the cup competitions. So it is going to be a big month for us, March. Hopefully the young boys can keep performing the way they are and the lads can grind out some really important results for us so we can enjoy the rest of the season.

WATFORD IN MIDWEEK

Watford are doing really well and they work really hard for each other. The problem we've got is that the amount of injuries means the manager isn't going to be able to shuffle his pack very much and he's probably going to have to play more or less the same team. We've played Thursday and Sunday and now we're going to have to play on Wednesday, whereas Watford have only just played the once coming into this game at Old Trafford. So you've got that side of it to consider as well.

If we can get a good result on Wednesday, that will complete an outstanding week for the players, from beating Midtjylland through to Arsenal and then Watford.

LOOKING FORWARD TO LIVERPOOL

We've done well against Liverpool in two league games this season so our players can go into the Europa League tie with confidence. It would be nice to have a few players returning from injury before then, though, so we've got a more in-depth squad to select from for those two really crucial games.

Jurgen Klopp said he's pleased to have been drawn against Manchester United and I think that's because it's a charisma tie and it gives a lot of credence to the Europa League because of the rivalry between the two clubs. Everybody should look forward to the games.