Robson: Rio absence would hit United badly

Bobby Robson believes Manchester United will badly miss Rio Ferdinand if he is eventually banned over his missed drugs test.

Ferdinand has turned in the most consistent form of his fledgling Old Trafford career since the row broke over his failure to provide a urine sample at United’s Carrington training ground in September.

In direct opposition to his former Leeds defensive partner Jonathan Woodgate, Ferdinand produced another outstanding performance in yesterday’s 0-0 draw with Newcastle.

Ferdinand has seven days to decide whether he will appeal against the eight-month suspension imposed by a three-man disciplinary panel last month but, even with Wes Brown and John O’Shea as possible replacements, Robson feels the England centre-back will prove difficult to replace if he is eventually forced to serve a suspension.

“Manchester United will miss him badly,” said the Magpies boss.

“You can’t replace players like that very easily. Seeing Rio and Jonathan on the same pitch again just reminded me what a marvellous partnership they had at Leeds.

“They are both the right age, good in the air and on the ground and have pace. Teams don’t win championships with only one centre-half, so they will have to find someone to come in.

“Wes Brown is still a bit rusty because of his injury, but they also have John O’Shea, so maybe they will cope with it. One thing’s for sure, they are not having Jonathan Woodgate.”

If Ferdinand does decide to appeal, it is possible he could continue playing until the end of February before he has to serve any suspension, although that would still leave Ferguson to hope Brown suffers no more injury problems for the remainder of the campaign.

With Woodgate and Andy O’Brien proving just as difficult to pass as Ferdinand and Mikael Silvestre, yesterday’s encounter produced few decent opportunities and hinged on two decisions from referee Paul Durkin.

The Portland official admitted he got it wrong when he opted not to give the visitors a penalty when Tim Howard sent Alan Shearer crashing.

Even Alex Ferguson was honest enough to accept Newcastle should have been awarded a spot-kick but the United boss claimed Durkin was “score-settling” when he ruled out Silvestre’s second-half effort for a penalty area tug on O’Brien.

“I have no doubt it was a goal but Paul used his experience to get himself out of a hole,” said Ferguson.

“We would probably have had to get three balls in the net before he gave us one.”

Neither side were particularly displeased with a point, which allowed Newcastle to stay in the thick of the fight for fourth place and United to leapfrog Arsenal into a narrow lead at the Premiership summit.

The only negative for the home side was the back injury sustained by Ryan Giggs which will rule him out of Saturday’s trip to Wolves.

“It was a very difficult game for us,” said Ferguson.

“Newcastle are in form, they made us work hard and a draw was probably a fair result.

“Arsenal and Chelsea still have to go to St James’ Park and Newcastle are always a handful up there.

“We all know there will be a few points dropped from now until the end of the season but we know the drill.

“The important thing was that we maintained our momentum. Now we have to keep it that way.”