Romelu: I predicted Alexis would score!

Romelu Lukaku told Alexis Sanchez he'd score against his former team, after the pair worked on the move that led to Manchester United's brilliant opening goal against Arsenal.

The Belgian played on the right side of a three-pronged attack and set up the first two strikes with two excellent passes for Alexis and Jesse Lingard.

Lukaku reflected on a great win for the Reds in his post-match interview with MUTV, and shared the details of a conversation he had with Alexis 24 hours before the game.

“I told him yesterday in training, 'Listen, you’re going to score tomorrow’,” explained Rom.

“I said to him I’d give him the ball as long as he ran inside if I couldn’t shoot. I said to him, 'Just run in and I’ll find you’. I think you could see when I got the ball I was looking for him and he made the right run and the finish for him was incredible.

"We knew they would leave space for me and Alexis with the full-backs pushing on so it would end up being 3 v 3 or 3 v 2 and we had a lot of moments when we could have countered better, especially in the second half. I think we could have scored two or three more goals to be honest, but 3-1 at Arsenal is very good.“

Lukaku was named Man of the Match in our post-match poll as he scooped 55 per cent of the votes. The man himself was delighted to play such a big part in the victory, even though he jokingly said afterwards he'll always take goals over assists.

“Scoring every time! [Laughs] I want to score every time because I’m a goalscorer but I can do both and throughout the years I’ve popped up with assists too,” he added. “I’m not sure I’ve had any this season before tonight but now I have two and if I keep the goals up and the assists up I’ll be really delighted.

”It was the manager’s idea to play me there [on the right of the attack]. I think he saw me play there a couple of times for Belgium and I did a job for the team in that position. I have to take my chances. I’m taking things a day at a time and working hard in training and I’m ready whenever the manager needs me.

“We said before the game we just need to try to dominate and play hard and then the result will come, and we did that. I think Arsenal tried to play their game but defensively we were really focused and offensively on the break we were really dangerous and that made a difference today in terms of that aspect. I’m really happy with the win.”

The victory made it eight wins from eight under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Lukaku admits confidence is soaring throughout the squad.

“We feel great but it’s the same in training. We play a lot of games in a lot of competitions and every time you come into the games you know the situations and you have to keep on maintaining the pressure on the other team and keep on delivering the quality, that’s what it’s about, and on the counter-attack we’re really dangerous. We’re growing steadily and winning games which is the most important thing.

”I don’t care who we play [in the next round],“ he continued. ”At the end of the day we’re Man United and wherever we go we have to perform and put a shift in, and that’s what we’ll do against whoever comes our way.“