Jose Mourinho has hailed Ander Herrera’s performance in the Manchester derby as ‘phenomenal’. Herrera was introduced to the field at half time, and massively improved the way the team were playing. Wherever the Spaniard was asked to play, he did so with great ability.

Herrera and Marcus Rashford replaced Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Jesse Lingard at half-time, and the Spanish midfielder brought lots to the game, including his pace, aggression and passing skills. Towards the end of the game, Herrera was deployed into a much deeper role – where he once again did the job.

Mourinho praised Herrera’s contribution, but said the occasion did prove to be too much for certain players.

“Let’s speak for example, Mkhitaryan, how many big matches has he played?” Mourinho said.

“The kid Jesse, how many times has he played big matches? If you speak about Eric Bailly he was playing for Villarreal, he never had a derby of this dimension but was our best player, was the player of the month, and today he coped with many situations.”

“So you never know the way they are going to react. Especially when you don’t know them so well after a couple of months, it’s too early to know them really well. For example, Ander Herrera came on in the second-half and he was the one who allowed us to recover the ball fast, to press higher, to bring the team higher, to recover the ball, to build a new wave of attack, to put another long ball into the last line. Ander was phenomenal in his attitude.”

“If you ask me that now I’m going to analyse this game because I need to analyse this game, no, I’m not going to,” he added.

“I’m going home to watch Den Haag against Feyenoord. This game [the derby], I know clearly what happened in the first-half, I know clearly what happened in the second-half.”

United play Feyenoord next in the Europa League on Thursday.

[Quotes via Manchester Evening news]