Valencia eyes final flourish

Antonio Valencia told United Review that it's been an eventful couple of weeks at Old Trafford, but that the yearning for a silver-lined season remains undiminished...

How is everyone feeling after a pretty eventful couple of weeks on three fronts?
Everyone is feeling good. We were pleased with the win over Norwich and there are so many positives to take out of our performance against Madrid despite the result. I don’t like to look at it as a down - we all know the big things that happened in the match which had an effect on the eventual result, but these things happen. Football is about ups and downs. Chelsea are always tough opponents and we were delighted to go 2-0 up and things were looking good. But when a team of that quality gets one back there is always a danger they can get another and that’s what happened unfortunately. The most important for us is to keep our heads up and move on to the next challenge.

You mentioned the positives you can take from the Madrid game - in a way can what happened inspire to you to succeed in other competitions?
Yes, definitely. For 65 minutes we were ahead in the game and the tie, playing well and in control. We know what happened after that. It’s hard to take positives when you’ve lost but in that particular match there were a lot of positives. We were one man down for most of the second half but even in the final few minutes we had Madrid penned back in their area. We showed that this Manchester United team is full of heart, character and a desire to be successful no matter the situation. And that is something that can inspire us for the future.

What was the overriding feeling after the Chelsea FA Cup game – frustration that we hadn’t gone through after being ahead or relieved to still be in it given how things panned out?
2-0 is