Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho has lavished praise on his players following Sunday's 3-1 win over Middlesbrough in the Premier League.

The Red Devils were missing a number of key players at the Riverside Stadium through injury and suspension, but secured all three points to move into fifth position in the Premier League table.

Mourinho has said that the result left him feeling "super happy", in addition to hailing the spirit of his players during a busy run of fixtures for the 20-time English champions.

"I'm super happy," Mourinho told BBC Sport. "The attitude of the boys was magnificent. I made them feel important, trusted. We organised the team to come here and do what we did until the second goal: defend well, don't concede, be dangerous on the counter-attack, play with the fast boys in front.

"You are always worried, especially when you miss chances like we did in the first half. Anything can happen with big football, with tall, direct players. It was open until the end.

"I was exactly expecting this. I knew that that answer would be positive, according to the qualities of my players. I cannot expect Marcus [Rashford] to be Zlatan [Ibrahimovic], [Michael] Carrick to be [Paul] Pogba, or Ashley Young to be [Daley] Blind. But they have their qualities."

"The good thing is that the group is really United. It's a group of friends, a group of guys, everybody fights for everybody. The spirit is fantastic. We have two doors open for Champions League football, so we will try for the Europa League and for fourth place in the Premier League, and see what happens."

Man United will return to league action at home to West Bromwich Albion on April 1.