An Ander Herrera double and a spectacular strike from Wayne Rooney gave Manchester United a 3-1 win at home to an often lacklustre Villa side.
The Spaniard impressed once again with his collection of goals, which has seen him overtake Radamel Falcao in the goalscoring charts on the season. After netting his fourth and fifth goals of the season, he said: “We will enjoy this result but start thinking about City now. They are fighting for the same positions as us”.
Clocking a pass accuracy of 96% during the game, he also made some comments on his own performance: “Goal scoring was one of the things I had to improve. Now it is getting better”.
United now lie in third place, one point behind Arsenal and one ahead of Manchester City (although the latter have a game in hand). Having considerably clicked in recent weeks, beating Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool before today’s victory, confidence is high at Old Trafford heading into the Manchester derby next Sunday.
“We are in a good position, but we are optimistic and we want to be even higher,” the midfielder continued. “We will fight for second. We still have to fight for seven more games; but we are in form and we are ready for the derby.”
Not all too long ago, the Manchester derby may have been seen as 3 points in the bag for City, but on current form, it is hard to write Louis van Gaal’s men off. With Herrera impressing alongside Fellaini and Carrick in midfield, we should have a lot more to offer than in recent showings against the noisy neighbours.
And teammate Phil Jones praised the 25-year-old after his brace, adding: “The last few months he’s been on fire. I remember playing him when he was at Bilbao – he gave me the run-around!”
Manchester United next fixture will see them host local rivals Manchester City on Sunday 12th April.
