Ralf Rangnick said Cristiano Ronaldo produced his best performance for weeks in Manchester United's 2-0 win over Brighton.
Ronaldo ended his six-game goal drought with a thunderous strike in the 51st minute and for his 15th club goal of the season and should have scored more but wasted two presentable headed chances.
United have risen to fourth in the Premier League table by inflicting just the second away league defeat on Brighton all season and Rangnick was pleased with Ronaldo's return to form.
"An amazing goal," Rangnick said. "Not only an important one but an amazing goal and I think overall it was a good performance by Cristiano.
"Energetically, he was always trying to help teammates and I think in the last weeks definitely the best performance by him and a very, very important goal for us."
Brighton outplayed United in the first-half but were undone when Yves Bissouma was dispossessed by Scott McTominay and Ronaldo latched onto the loose ball to larrup it past goalkeeper Robert Sanchez.
Centre-back Lewis Dunk was sent off three minutes later for denying Anthony Elanga a goalscoring opportunity but Brighton still unnerved United despite their numerical disadvantage. United came perilously close to a fourth consecutive 1-1 draw as Jakub Moder hit the crossbar and Danny Welbeck nodded over in the 90th minute.
"Big win but we still have quite a few games to play after three draws," Rangnick added. "Two of them at home. This was a very important win and even so after the first-half today, today for a change we had a better second-half than the first-half and in the second-half it paid off, we were more aggressive, we were primed to intercept and attack them in higher positions, so a highly important win for us.
"It was different from the last three games because we were Dr Jekyll in the first-half and this time in the second-half. I think it's better in the second-half when it's still 0-0 we can win the game in the end. Today it was only about getting the three points.
"After the first-half, everyone could see it was not an easy game. They are in big form, they did extremely well with a diamond in midfield, it was very difficult to intercept and get hold of the ball.
"We had three or four transitional moments in the first-half, even in the first-half we had the better chances but they had too long periods of time with the ball and the supporters realised that and they were a little bit anxious and nervous in the first half and we had to take more risks in the second-half and attack them in higher positions."
