RONALDO MUST STAY

"Whatever it takes to keep Ronaldo, you've got to do it," said Allardyce. "Manchester United simply can't afford to lose him. Real Madrid is certainly not the club for him at the present moment, Manchester United is.

"There's no development at Real Madrid right now, there's only decline. Whereas this team at United is a young one that is developing all the time and they're still in line for three trophies.

"Ronaldo can go to Spain later on in his career if he wants, but certainly not at the moment.

"For me, Ronaldo and Didier Drogba are the players of the season. Drogba's got 30 goals and you can't take that away from him. Ronaldo's got goals too, but he's also got the flair that Drogba hasn't.

"United are unstoppable now. Had we made it as difficult as we possibly could for them, they probably still would have beaten us, given the frame of mind they're in."

He also had some kind words to say about Wayne Rooney:

"I can't understand why Wayne hasn't done it more against other teams like he has against us. I've watched him in a lot of games here and I haven't seen him find the finishing touches he finds against us. His two goals were not easy goals to ' score. The chip over goalie was not easy and for the second he ran around the ball to get it on his right foot, then smashed it from a very tight angle into the corner."