ALEX FERGUSON was amazed at Javier Mascherano’s
incredible show of contempt for referee Steve Bennett in a week
when everyone in football was condemning the curse of
dissent.
The hotheaded Argentinian was shown a second yellow card and
dismissed just before half-time after abusing Bennett and his
assistants no less than SIX times in a non-stop tirade at Old
Trafford. He then refused to leave the pitch and had to be
restrained as he tried to confront Bennett.
Bennett was the fourth official in the Tottenham-Chelsea game
four days earlier, when Ashley Cole was blasted for turning his
back on Mike Riley when the referee showed him a yellow card for a
vicious tackle. Ferguson, who boasted this week about how he “went
off his head” with players who surrounded referees, said Mascherano
could have no complaints.
He explained: “I don’t know why he got involved. He came across
from central midfield to argue with the referee. “With what
happened during the week with the Ashley Cole thing, there’s been a
focus on dissent. He’d already been booked and he kept badgering
the referee. Dissent is dissent — and I think that was
dissent.”
Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez amazingly tried to defend his
player. The Spaniard said: “He knows he made a mistake but in this
kind of game it is wrong to leave a team with just 10 players
because one of them asked why. “I talked to him in Spanish
from the touchline and I kept telling him to stop, saying ‘It’s
finished’. He doesn’t know the referees so well and I wanted him to
stop.
“Mascherano is a fantastic professional and has been playing at
the maximum level for years. When you play a big game like this you
are surprised by something like this. And you want to know why you
are sent off. “We are talking about players who are passionate
and who want to win. Mascherano was trying to work really hard,
like everyone else, and we are disappointed with what
happened.
“All of my people are disappointed and no one is more
disappointed than me. We had our chances but with 10 players, it’s
just ‘forget it’. Before the sending off we had chances and maybe
we could have scored. But then we were losing 1-0 after a mistake
and after the sending off everything was over.”
