Fergie Urges Red Card U-Turn
Sir Alex Ferguson wants referee Steve Bennett to reconsider the red card he showed Cristiano Ronaldo during Saturday's Manchester derby.
The official sent off the Portuguese winger after 66 minutes at Eastlands for a high lunge on Andy Cole, despite no contact taking place between the two players.
"The referee's decided it's a red card and I think he should look at it again really," Sir Alex told MUTV. "He's not touched the player, he's not got near him."
Ferguson felt Ronaldo's challenge was borne of frustration, having been clattered seconds earlier by Stephen Jordan without the award of a free-kick.
"I think he's really disappointed he never got a foul for the tackle on him, and it was a really bad tackle on him on the touchline. But no foul came from the referee and that's frustrated him," he said.
Debutant Patrice Evra was substituted at half-time for Alan Smith in a defensive reshuffle and Ferguson was quick to defend the new signing's contribution - insisting that the change was enforced simply by the need for more derby experience.
"At 2-0 down we wanted to make sure we didn't lose another goal," he said. "I think John O'Shea has more knowledge of derby games than Patrice, so that was maybe a bit of a gamble.
"That's why I played Mikael Silvestre, being a French player, trying to help Patrice. He did his job ok, I've no complaints. I don't think he was responsible for anything. But basically the defending out there was poor."
Ferguson conceded that City deserved their victory after a distinctly average United performance saw an end to an 11-game unbeaten league run.
He said: "We've been in very good form but in fairness we didn't play well enough in the first half. We gave the ball away too much and our last-third play wasn't good enough. The crosses into the box were easy to deal with and we should be doing better than that."
Cristiano Ronaldo will serve a three-match ban after an appeal against his red card at Manchester City was rejected by a Football Association panel on Tuesday.
The Portuguese winger was dismissed by referee Steve Bennett for a high lunge on former Reds striker Andy Cole during the 3-1 defeat, but the club appealed against the decision on the grounds that no contact was made between the two players.
The ban means Ronaldo will miss United's matches against Burton Albion, Liverpool and Blackburn Rovers.
Posted by starfrommadeira
at 12:01 AM GMT
Updated: Thursday, 19 January 2006 9:10 PM GMT
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