Whilst disappointed not to have won last night against Rangers, Chris Smalling was delighted to have represented Manchester United in the Champions League.

“It’s one of the biggest competitions a player can play in and I thoroughly enjoyed it,” said Smalling. “I’ve watched so many of these games on television so to be part of one at a club like United is fantastic. Unfortunately, we just couldn’t break them down and everyone is disappointed with the result. The next game against Valencia is going to be very important now. Hopefully we can move on quickly from this result, take the positives from it and score a few more goals in our next few games.”

Smalling put in a decent shift, making some good tackles and generally passing the ball out of defence well. He will likely struggle to get much more first team action any time soon, thanks to Rio Ferdinand and Wes Brown returning from injury.