My wife was here today cheering on with the away end. Credit to her and two boys on a school night who I've promised a trip to Bilbao. There's so many people you know who take the knocks and feel it more than I do. I'm sure they're proud of me tonight but more importantly I'm just pleased I can give it back to them for all their sacrifices.
I love winning. That's what I've done my whole career. People will dismiss it, that's fine. But I love winning, and I love the way the boys, like I said, clearly understood what we needed to do tonight. The key thing for us was not to allow them to get any sort of rhythm in their game. They like to play at a quick tempo, because they use the surface, they take advantage of the opposition being uncertain on it. But I thought our press was just outstanding. We never allowed them really to get into our half with any sort of clean possession .It's a credit to the boys that they understood what the task was tonight, and still had the quality to score the goals we did.
I guess yeah, it's a great opportunity. It's my fourth year in European football, plenty of people have been in European football for longer than I have, they haven't got to a final. So you understand it's something that you need to appreciate. And I'll certainly do that. I haven't really thought a lot about it, because obviously the focus is on tonight. More importantly, just really pleased for the players and the staff, and particularly our supporters. There were a few hundred here tonight who i"m sure will remember this night. And thousands back home. We've given them some real hope and something to dream about, that we can do something special this year."
It's going to upset a lot of people isn't it! The debate's now raging, the latest one is that neither of us will be able to get a trophy if we win, they're just going to take a team photo because we're not worthy. I mean, who cares if we're struggling in the league? Why is that important? If it's so easy to get to a final, then why doesn't everyone who finishes in the top three do it? It's a separate thing. It's got nothing to do with league form. We understand our league form hasn't been great. We understand the struggles we've had. A lot of them are because of the situation we've been in. But how that diminishes the achievement of getting to a final. Like I said, this club and others have finished in first, second or third in the Premier League, and haven't made finals. Why should that be diminished? I couldn't care less who's struggling and who's not. I think both us and Manchester United have earned the right to be there. I think we've probably beaten teams who will be in the Champions League next year, on our road to getting there. So looking forward to it, should be a great game.
I love winning. That's what I've done my whole career. People will dismiss it, that's fine. But I love winning, and I love the way the boys, like I said, clearly understood what we needed to do tonight. The key thing for us was not to allow them to get any sort of rhythm in their game. They like to play at a quick tempo, because they use the surface, they take advantage of the opposition being uncertain on it. But I thought our press was just outstanding. We never allowed them really to get into our half with any sort of clean possession. It's a credit to the boys that they understood what the task was tonight, and still had the quality to score the goals we did.
The players were outstanding. They were well-prepared tonight, the staff did a great job of making sure the boys were really clear about what we needed to do. They executed it perfectly. It's been well-chronicled in the last few days it's a difficult place to come through, they've got a really imposing home record, not just with wins but with goals, I thought the lads just handled it really well, as they have throughout this European campaign, particularly the knock-out stages, and credit to them, I thought they did an outstanding job.