Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson accepted luck played its part in his side's controversial 3-2 win over Chelsea in the English Premier League game at Stamford Bridge, while insisting Fernando Torres only has himself to blame for the second yellow card.
Chelsea went down to nine men after referee Mark Clattenburg showed a straight red card to Branislav Ivanovic and a second yellow to Torres for diving. That changed the entire landscape of the game - then nicely poised at 2-2 -- with United taking advantage of their numerical superiority to score the winner, although, replays showed the goalscorer Javier Hernandez was offside.
A David Luis own goal and Robin Van Persie had given United the lead, before Juan Mata and Ramires equalized with Chelsea looking like the team that would go and get all three points, before the refereeing decision went against them.
"The sending off of the right-back was the turning point for us," Ferguson told Sky Sports. "I think we would have won it from that point. I put Chicharito on and he got the winning goal as I think the momentum was with us then.
Ferguson acknowledged Jonny Evans had caught Torres while the Spaniard was at full tilt, but felt the Chelsea striker should have carried on instead of looking for a free kick. "Did he intend to dive when he could've gone through? I thought he went down," Ferguson said. "I think Jonny may have just caught him a little bit but you can either carry on running, which he could've done, or gone down.
"He could've carried on and scored that, which I can't understand about goalscorers. I would never have missed that chance -- I'd have taken it any time and never gone down. He did go down and had already been booked so it's his own fault.
"You have to give credit to Chelsea, they never gave in and you saw David Luiz running around like a whirling dervish, that's his desire to get back into the game. They gambled -- it failed obviously -- but they showed great desire to try and win the game. You've got to give them credit for that."
The manager added he was happy to finally see some of the refereeing decisions go United's way at Stamford Bridge, while admitting his side might have been lucky with the winner. "It's 10 years since we won here (in the league)," he added. "I said before the game that we've had some shocking decisions down here.
"It's very difficult to come here and get all the decisions as it's a very difficult place. The crowd played a part, they were terrific and right behind their team, and we buckled in the minutes before and after half-time.
"I think we gathered ourselves well and got back into the game. They said the winning goal could have been offside, so that's a bit of luck we got, but we started the game so well. We were absolutely brilliant but then, 10 minutes from half-time, we lost our way a bit.
"I couldn't wait for half time, to be honest, then they got the second goal and, from that moment, we had to start performing properly and I think we did that."
