Berbatov deserved the headlines, says Ferguson

Sir Alex Ferguson was disappointed his comments about Liverpool striker Fernando Torres stole the headlines from Dimitar Berbatov last Sunday.

The Bulgarian forward scored a magnificent hat-trick to seal a 3-2 victory for the Red Devils over their bitter Merseyside rivals at Old Trafford. However, Ferguson’s observations about an incident involving United defender John O’Shea and Torres caused a stir post match.

“Torres made a meal of it, an absolute meal of it,” Ferguson said last Sunday. “There is no doubt he tried to get the player sent off.”

Speaking to MUTV this week, Ferguson slammed the media and put his remarks into context.

He said: “If you think about Berbatov scoring a hat-trick – the first to score a hat-trick in 64 years in that game – you’d have thought that would get the back-page headlines, but that was stuck on the inside.

“It was all me saying Torres was a cheat, which was absolutely ridiculous press. I said, quite rightly, that I thought he had made the most of it. That’s not to say the guy’s a cheat. It could apply to any player in a given moment, taking advantage of a situation.

“But that was disappointing (from) a lot of the press. I thought Berbatov would have grabbed all the headlines, which he really did deserve.”