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Rafael da Silva taken to hospital after United victory

Rafael da Silva's injury held the game up for 10 minutes © PA Photos

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Sir Alex Ferguson watched his Manchester United side score three times in the last 18 minutes of normal time to beat Blackpool 3-2 at Bloomfield Road, and then revealed Rafael da Silva had been taken to hospital.

United had to survive 10 minutes of injury-time due to a nasty looking collision involving Rafael and Marlon Harewood, which saw the Brazilian defender stretchered off with the support of a neck brace.

"He's gone to hospital," said Ferguson. "We just hope he's okay. He's got concussion, we know that, we just hope everything else is okay."

Ferguson was delighted with his side's fighting spirit after a "terrible" first-half display that saw Blackpool lead 2-0 at half-time thanks to goals from Craig Cathcart and DJ Campbell.

"They just never give in," he told ESPN. "In the first half we were battered. We couldn't handle Charlie Adam. We were terrible. I don't know the reason for the first half. We were all over the place. Maybe we were too confident. We changed at half-time, Ryan Giggs made a tremendous difference. We started to penetrate and I think we were deserved winners in the end."

Ferguson reserved special praise for goalscorers Javier Hernandez and Dimitar Berbatov, the former of whom came on as a substitute for the disappointing Wayne Rooney.

Of Hernandez, Ferguson said: "His pace and timing of the runs is fantastic. He's so good at that. He could have scored four goals. He's made a tremendous impact.

"[Dimitar's] having a great season. He has great talent. The third goal, the composure, I was screaming for him to square it to Chicharito but, no, he has the confidence and ability to do what he did."

Berbatov, who is the Premier League's top scorer, claimed he was always confident his side would come back to win.

"We're always confident that if we can score one we can score more and that was the case today," he said. "We fight like a team. In the second half we showed spirit and we won.

"You come here, it's not a friendly ground. The pitch is not as ours back home at Old Trafford. Blackpool played a very good game and scored goals, they could easily have scored more in the first half. In the end it was the team spirit that won the game."

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