United manager remains cool after stunning result

“I couldn’t ask for much more, particularly the work-rate, organisation and desire to win.

“People will highlight that we had players unavailable but at the end of the day, we had 11 first team squad members on the pitch and I wouldn’t have been making excuses if we had lost the game.

“It’s a squad game and I was delighted with the performances of the players who came in, particularly some of the young boys.

“Jamie Davidson understandably got all the headlines but I have to give special mention to Michael Ruddy who two weeks ago was playing in the youth team at the Foyle Cup.

“Now he has made it to the first team. He was thrown in at the deep end against Linfield and you would have thought he had played at this level for years so he’s a young lad who could well have a good future.

“We have worked hard from last season finished, put together a good pre-season programme together and we all played our parts in different parts of that.

“The boys have said it’s as hard or as good a pre-season as they’ve had and it stood by them today because they matched Linfield physically.

“I said before the game if you can match Linfield physically, defend well and work as hard as them, we had players in our team who have the ability to create chances.

“I enjoyed the game. Linfield might have had a lot of possession but I didn’t think we were under any real threat.

“The more times you close a team down, the less they have it and the less pressure they can put you under.

“We want to press teams, that’s why we put three up top. It would have been very easy to put five in midfield and suck Linfield on – why do that?

“We decided before the game to go 4-3-3 and have a go at them,” added Ferguson.