• Premier League

Fergie launches attack on linesman after Spurs draw

ESPN staff
January 20, 2013
Sir Alex Ferguson felt this should have resulted in a penalty for Manchester United at Tottenham © Getty Images
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Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson was furious with the performance of assistant referee Simon Beck in the 1-1 draw with Tottenham on Sunday, especially over an incident when Wayne Rooney went down in the area under a challenge from Steven Caulker.

Ferguson also felt Beck was at fault for United's injury-time concession of an equaliser to Clint Dempsey, after failing to award the visitors a throw-in.

"I think we should have had a throw-in down our side of the pitch but that linesman never gave us a thing all day," Ferguson said to Sky Sports.

"For me, it was a poor performance by him. He never saw the penalty kick for Wayne Rooney and some other decisions too.

"We remember him well from his time at the Chelsea game when Didier Drogba was three yards offside and he gave onside. I think he had a shocking game today and I'm disappointed in his performance, I really am.

"I think he has had a bad game and we never got anything from that side of the pitch. We got a bad break."

Ferguson did give credit to Tottenham, but felt his side should have killed the game off in the second half after Robin van Persie's opener.

"Tottenham worked their socks off, you have to give them credit,'' he said. "They kept pumping the ball in the box and got their reward. You'd have thought we would have dealt with it better.

"We should have killed them off on the counter-attack in the second half. It was the final ball that was letting us down. It was a difficult tie, teams will drop points here, there is no doubt about that.''

Tottenham manager Andre Villas-Boas felt his side deserved even more than their point, after Dempsey and Jermain Defoe missed fine chances to level earlier in the contest.

"We dominated the whole game, played well and deserved to win to be fair,'' he said. "We had 60% possession against United, 15 shots against four and should have won. Champions like United have to go through moments like this but I think we deserved this last-minute goal.

"We set our targets high, we wanted to win. We understood you are not going to go two or three up but we managed to get at least a point and a deserved point.''

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
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