(Overall thoughts on the match...) "We were well beaten. Athletic Club Bilbao were the better team, they were very aggressive in terms of their attacking and pressing the ball. Their system caused us problems. All teams do that away from home - they overload the midfield which can cause you problems."
(On 2nd half adjustments by United...) "When we went to three midfielders in the second half we seemed to get better and get a grip of the game and our attacking play was pretty good then. The attacking part wasn’t a problem for us really, but our defending wasn't very good and it kept us on the back foot all the time. It was very loose, particularly in the first half."
(On David de Gea...) "Without David De Gea, we could have conceded four or five goals. He was superb. He made maybe four or five terrific saves in the game."
(On Athletic's 2nd goal...) "The second goal put us on the back foot again. I thought it was offside and if it had been disallowed, I think we could have won the game. Maybe not deservedly but I think we could have won it."
(On the referee's decision to stop play prior to Athletic's 3rd goal...) ""The ref said to the players that you can’t play without a boot. It seems a bit bizarre as Patrice only passed the ball about three feet. It was a bit unfortunate."
(On United's chances during the return leg...) "We can win the game, I don't think there's any question about that. We showed tonight we can make chances against them. Obviously we're going to have to defend better, that goes without saying."
(On Athletic's traveling supporters...) "When visiting teams bring that number of fans it makes for a great atmosphere"
(On Athletic's manager Marcelo Bielsa...) "His team probably mirror himself. The work ethic of their team is fantastic. They worked harder than us tonight. That’s the way he’s built his team to work as hard as that and press the ball everywhere on the pitch. They never stopped running. They had a two-hour training session yesterday – one hour in the morning at our old training ground and one last night so they trained for two hours and still put that effort in tonight. It tells you everything about them."