Ryan Giggs revealed he had a sleepless night as he considered his team selection and which players would miss out ahead of his first game in interim charge of Manchester United.
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United ran out 4-0 winners over Norwich City at Old Trafford, with Juan Mata surprisingly relegated to the substitutes' bench, and Giggs was delighted to get off to such a superb start after stepping into David Moyes' shoes earlier in the week.
"To win 4-0 is a dream day for us," he said. "It's always nice to end the game like we did. We looked like we were scoring goals, not just the response of the players.
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"The first half we were a little bit slow, but I just reminded them that the tempo needs to be quicker and they reacted well to that.
"I didn't sleep last night [because of the team selection]. Players on the bench, leaving the likes of Juan Mata out of the starting XI was a difficult decision and a position I've never been put in before. And it was really tough. I'm interim manager but I'm also one of their teammates, so it was tough to leave them out.
"But you've seen the response of Juan. That's a true professional, to not moan and not sulk and come on and perform like he did."
Giggs also insists he has given no thought to what the future holds and whether he will argue his case to be given the job on a full-time basis. He added: "It's not something that I'm thinking of at the moment, just these four games. It's taken so much out of me this week that I've not really had time to look too far into the future. My next job now is to get the players ready for Sunderland.
"All of us have let ourselves down this year. We haven't played to the ability we're capable of. Every time you play for United you have to keep to that standard and the standard that we set today was excellent."
Regarding the rumours Louis Van Gaal is favourite to take charge next season, Giggs said: "The club has just said to me, 'You've got the job for four games' -- that's one down and three to go. I'll do the job to the best of my ability and after that we'll see what happens."
Wayne Rooney, who along with Mata scored twice, felt the team provided the perfect response to what he described as a tough week.
"We're the ones on the pitch, we have to take a lot of responsibility [for Moyes leaving]. We've had a tough week and there's been a lot of negativity towards us as a team. We were hurt by that and we wanted to put that right. It's important for us to end the season well."
Mata started the match on the bench but was delighted to be given his chance to make his mark in a much-improved second-half display. "We scored four times and we didn't concede a goal," he said. "The first half was difficult but in the second half we showed what Manchester United can do at home.
"We always try our best. Sometimes it's difficult to win, it's difficult to play. We didn't find enough space to create opportunities in the first half, but we're all together and our aim is to win the three games we have left."
Defeat leaves Norwich perched precariously above the bottom three, and manager Neil Adams knows his team let themselves down with their second-half display. He said: "We did really well first half and then five minutes before the end they get the penalty and that changes the game.
"The second half wasn't good enough. We had a go, we tried, but you go 2-0 down away from home like this -- I just felt we needed to be better second half.
"We've got two games left now and need to take points from both games. We have to pick ourselves up. The overall performance today wasn't good enough but we're still above the line. What we can't do now is beat ourselves up and think we're in big trouble. Those two games we've got to believe in ourselves and give everything we've got."