Man United 2 Blackburn 3: Ferguson blames loss on bad defending

Sir Alex Ferguson criticised Manchester United’s poor defending as Blackburn Rovers caused an upset at Old Trafford, with Grant Hanley scoring an 80th-minute.

The visitors took a 16th-minute lead when Yakubu scored from the penalty spot after Dimitar Berbatov had fouled defender Chris Samba.

And the Nigerian striker netted his second and doubled Rovers’ lead when he broke past Phil Jones and rifled his finish past United goalkeeper David De Gea.

Berbatov then scored twice in 10 minutes to restore parity but Steve Kean’s side struck back in the 80th minute as Hanley’s header handed Rovers three points.

“We never expected that,” Ferguson said. “We’ve lost two terrible goals in the game, and we can’t do that in a game like this.

“It was a bad one to lose. It was great to come back to 2-2 and I thought we’d go on and win as we had the momentum but the third goal was a killer.

“We’re missing the craft of Michael Carrick in midfield and the experience of Ryan Giggs.”

Meanwhile, Blackburn manager Kean was delighted by his players’ commitment and urged them to maintain the same attitude for their vital clash against Stoke City on Monday.

“We’ll go a long way to beat that today,” said Kean. “We built on last week’s draw at Anfield.

“The young lads are growing up very quickly and did really well. It shows the fighting spirit that we’ve got and we had to have that today.

“It was a physical game but this result is massive – but it’s no good if we don’t build on that against Stoke next. It’s great to win, and great to win here.”