Michael Carrick hailed a superb start as Manchester United interim boss after a stunning derby victory over Manchester City on Saturday.
Second-half goals from Bryan Mbuemo and Patrick Dorgu capped a brilliant performance as the rejuvenated Red Devils inflicted further damage on City’s title chances with a deserved 2-0 win at Old Trafford.
It was Carrick’s first game since he was appointed head coach for the remainder of the season following the sacking of Ruben Amorim last week.
The former United midfielder said: “It is a great start, there is no getting away from that.
“Before the game, we coaches spoke and said the boys were in a good place. We were quite happy with how we prepared for it and emotionally where the boys were at.
“But City are an unbelievable team with talent and they change it, so you have to go to plan B and C and work around it.
“You never really know how the game is going to go but for it to pan out like that, the boys were fantastic in so many ways. To manage it emotionally and pull it together, yes, it was pretty good.”
United were fully fired up and dominated throughout. They had three goals ruled out for offside, hit the woodwork twice and were denied on several other occasions by City goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma.
Carrick will now challenge his players to match those standards regularly, starting with next week’s trip to Premier League leaders Arsenal.
Carrick said: “The players left the changing room unbelievably desperate to do well and the supporters were incredible.
“I said yesterday this can be a magical place and hopefully it is just the start. We are not getting carried away but you have got to enjoy the feeling.
“We looked dangerous all the time. Certainly we are not going to have games with the emotion and feeling that today brought but there are levels of standard we need to live up to.
“It’s a big one again next week but we have got a good foundation to build on.”
For City, it was a fourth game without a win after draws in their previous three games, a potentially costly sequence as they bid to chase down Arsenal.
“The better team won,” manager Pep Guardiola said. “They had something we didn’t have.
“We always talk about the energy we need. We had that energy three or four days ago at Newcastle.
“Even in the three games we drew we played extremely good in many departments but today no.
“They had something we didn’t have. I’ve come here many times and we were not at the required level to win this type of game. Accept it and move on.”
Guardiola felt United’s Diogo Dalot should have been sent off after an early foul on Jeremy Doku.
He said: “It’s a red card but it would be poor as a manager to analyse that as the reason for the game. I could blame that but we will not.”
