Manchester United Football Club News

• Nickname:Red Devils
• Founded:1878
• Manager:Sir Alex Ferguson

• Ground:Old Trafford
• Capacity:68,174

Fergie points to two factors

20 Apr 2009 - 07:25:37

Click To Enlarge

Sir Alex Ferguson blamed a "dead" pitch and the failure of referee Mike Riley to award Manchester United a penalty for their FA Cup semi-final defeat at the hands of Everton.

A much-changed United line-up lost on penalties to the Toffees on Sunday following a goalless 120 minutes at Wembley.

Ferguson claimed he decided to alter his starting line-up after seeing the state of the pitch in the previous day's last-four encounter between Arsenal and Chelsea.

But although revealing his disappointment at the playing surface, the veteran Scot was unhappy after Riley denied United what appeared to be a clear penalty in the 69th minute when Danny Welbeck was brought down by Phil Jagielka.

When asked whether Everton boss David Moyes querying the choice of Riley prior to the game had influenced the referee's decision making, Ferguson replied: "I'm not saying that for certain. I've no idea if it affected the decision but you never know. It may have. It can prey on a referee's mind.

"I've seen the video and it looks a penalty kick, but in the importance of the game the referee probably has to be dead sure.

"Why would he (Welbeck) go down when he had the goalkeeper stranded out of his goal? It was a major decision and unfortunately it has gone against us. Nothing you can do about it. We have to move on now.

"When he sees it he'll probably realise he's made a mistake but I can't say that's the reason for us losing."

On the state of the Wembley pitch which Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger was critical of 24 hours earlier, Ferguson was also similarly unhappy.

Ferguson decided to leave Paul Scholes, Dimitar Berbatov and Patrice Evra out of his starting line-up after seeing the state of the surface.

He added: "When I saw the pitch yesterday what I didn't want was to go into extra time with my strongest squad.

"Yesterday it looked spongy and dead and difficult to move the ball quickly around it.

"They've got all these lights around the perimeter to help the growth and the standard of the soil but it looks dead to me.

"So we had to go with the bold decision of playing the younger ones. After all our club is built on giving young players opportunities and they didn't disappoint.

"Once we made our mind up I was quite enthusiastic about it. It was the right thing to do. It was good for them."