Wayne Rooney claims Manchester United's Champions League fightback against Olympiakos was owed to beleaguered manager David Moyes by the club's under-performing players.
United overturned a 2-0 first-leg deficit against the Greek champions to qualify for the quarter-finals following a hat-trick by Robin van Persie in Wednesday's 3-0 victory at Old Trafford.
With the win coming just three days after the 3-0 humiliation at home to Liverpool - a defeat which left Moyes's position in grave danger - United eased the mounting pressure on the former Everton manager.
And Rooney, handed a new five-year contract by Moyes last month, admits the players needed to deliver a performance for the struggling Scot.
"I've said before that our performances this season haven't been good enough and we owed the manager a big performance," Rooney said. "We know as players we are better than what we've done this season and as a group we have to show that and put it right.
"After the first game in Athens and especially what happened on Sunday, we knew that we had to come and give a big performance, for ourselves really - for our own personal pride, and the manager and we've done that.
"It's something we have to kick on from now. We've still got a few games left in the season and we want to build on this. Hopefully we can do that.
"I think Sunday, as all the players will admit, was a devastating result for us. To lose 3-0 the way we did was hard to take and we had to stand up and show ourselves and really be at our best because that was not good enough.
"We have done that, but we have to kick on now and we have to give performances like that every week."
Rooney admits United have struggled to overcome the loss of Sir Alex Ferguson this season following the former manager's retirement at the end of last season.
"I think it was always going to be tough when Sir Alex left," Rooney said. "It was obviously a massive change so we knew it was going to be tough, but we didn't expect it to be as tough as it has been. "But we have to put that right. We have to keep working, keep believing in ourselves and hopefully it'll get better."
"We (players) talk after every game, whether we win, lose or draw, but we knew as a team what went wrong on Sunday, we didn't need anyone to tell us, and we came out and delivered a big performance.
"If it's not going right, some games you can have bad games, but you still need to put that effort in. It's massively important to me, to the team and the manager."
"Sometimes it may not look like that but we are giving everything, we are trying. Sometimes it doesn't happen but we are working hard to get better and to try to climb the table."
With United playing with a more attacking game-plan than in recent weeks against Olympiakos, Rooney insists the tone has now been set for the rest of the campaign.
"That's been part of our DNA over the years I've been here - that intensity, that running off the ball, the pace we play at," Rooney said. "It's a big part of the way we play and it showed on Wednesday that when we do that to teams it's difficult for them to stop us."
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