Manchester United staged the comeback they required and lifted the pressure on manager David Moyes with victory over Olympiakos at Old Trafford to reach the Champions League quarter-finals.
Robin van Persie’s hat-trick overturned the visitors’ two-goal lead from the first leg and gave Moyes some much-needed breathing space after Sunday’s embarrassing 3-0 Premier League home defeat by Liverpool.
It wasn’t one of those perfect hat-tricks. It wasn’t sublimely skilful, or greatly artistic in execution, not the poetry in motion we have come to expect in this tournament from Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo.
Yet it is hard to believe there will be a more valuable contribution to the David Moyes era than that of Robin van Persie at Old Trafford on Wednesday night.
He didn’t just put Manchester United into the Champions League quarter-finals. He may even have kept his manager in employment.
