Many pre-match shows had said that the Manchester United-Liverpool battle would also be their strikers’ battle. Persie was leading the goal tally by one goal with 16 Premier League goals while Luis Suarez was on 15. However, Persie was already the leader and is still leading with 17 goals now while Suarez remains on 15.
Although the whole team played very well, Persie deserves the due credit for scoring a goals and providing some good amount of threat to Liverpool, esp. during thefirst half, in which United were greatly dominant.
“It was an unbelievable goal with great combinations,” Robin told MUTV. “Michael Carrick was involved, Danny Welbeck was involved, as well as Tom [Cleverley] and Shinji [Kagawa], and then it went out on the left to Pat, who put a really good cross in and it was a good finish. It was a great goal – especially the build-up.
“Everybody felt the importance of this fixture during the week and we are really happy with the result. We had a good first half and it should have been more than 1-0 in my opinion.
“In the second half, Liverpool played for all or nothing with lots of attackers so we had to dig in and fight for each other, helping each other out where possible. We did that and we fought hard. We got the result we wanted.”
The match turned into a tricky one when Vidic scored of an Evra header, just a few minuites after the second half began. Liverpool were quick to react and Daniel Sturrdige scored a goal to decrease the lead.
“We didn’t really want that because when you have a two-goal lead you want to keep it for as long as possible and they scored five or six minutes [after our second goal],” van Persie admitted. “Then we had to go again and we had to find the right balance to try and score a third goal but not forget our defensive work.
“It was only a one goal difference so it was a bit tricky and they had a couple of chances, but overall I think it was a deserved win. It was a great game and a very honest game. The defence was great again and it was a proper football game.”
Persie was lined up along Danny Welbeck, a combination that was not used a lot this season. However, the young English striker impressed the Dutchman greatly.
“He [Welbeck] played really well. I think he was good in the combinations and played a big part in the build-up to the first goal, passing and moving to make space. A couple of times he got the ball when they made a mistake. I got it one or two times when they misplaced the ball.
“He has been brilliant. He is still young and has been really good in training, working his socks off. He is a very positive guy who wants and loves to play football. He did really well.”
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