Manchester United were defeated by Ajax last night but still managed to progress the Europa League quarter-finals thank to the 2-0 lead they brought to the game from Amsterdam.

Despite taking the lead, United conceded two goals and had to endure a nervous final few minutes after Ajax dominated the second half.

United played with what most would see as our future back five, although Sir Alex Ferguson believes he took too much of a risk in leaving out our more experienced players.

“I must say, I’ve got to accept I’m responsible for picking the team and tonight I picked too many young players in the back four positions – that was a big problem in terms of experience,” said Ferguson. “It was a big risk I took. Ajax are fantastic in terms of keeping the ball. Their first goal I thought was a handball (in the build-up) but although they had a lot of possession they didn’t look like scoring. But that goal gave them confidence and we only had one shot in the second half. I thought we were very poor in the second half.”