Soccer: Ferguson blames almost everything for cup defeat

Sir Alex Ferguson blamed the pitch, the referee, his defence and his strikers for the 1-0 defeat to West Ham.

Ferguson felt referee Paul Durkin did not play enough stoppage time and that he should have awarded them a first-half penalty for handball.

He also slammed the state of the Old Trafford pitch, the commonsense of his defenders and the finishing of his strikers.

Ferguson felt it was madness to allow two rugby league finals to be played on the surface earlier this season.

He said: "I can't believe Manchester United has allowed rugby matches to be played on the pitch.

"The biggest club in the world and they have to play rugby every November and the pitch is a mess after it.

"You think they would learn a lesson and it's an absolute disgrace.

"We should have had a clear penalty in the first half - clear handball.

"If you don't get those then you know you're going to be struggling in the game.

"He Durkin added four minutes on but I felt it should have been a lot more than that.

"They don't really take time they just guess it."

Ferguson also felt his strikers should have killed the game off before Paolo di Canio scored in the 75th minute, while he criticised his defence for not playing to the whistle because they thought the Italian was offside.

"If we had taken our first chance we would have won comfortably," he said.

"I think you run the risk when you don't take your chances and we had quite a few good ones.

"For the goal I don't think it was offside and they should know better.

"They should not be trying to play offside when the player on the ball is comfortable. They should have dropped back, but nobody came back so he was clear."