Manchester United Transfer News: Hernandez Accepts He Was Offside for Winning Goal, But Refuses to Dwell on Controversies

Oct 29, 2012 04:36 AM EDT

Javier Hernandesz accepted he might have been offside after scoring the decisive third goal for Manchester United in a controversial 3-2 win over Chelsea.

The Stamford Bridge faithful were in for a horror show from the referees, after Mark Clattenburg sent off Branislav Ivanovic and Fernando Torres - the second a very harsh one for diving.

After going down to nine men, Chelsea lost any chances of getting a winning result, with United wearing them down and earning a 3-2 win, to pull to within one point of the league leaders.

Hernandez looked at the assistant referee immediately after scoring the winner, and later admitted he was worried about being called offside. "Probably. I think it's a habit that I have to look to the linesman," Hernadez told Sky Sports.

"It was a really difficult game because the final part of the first half they came on, but we were lucky we scored the last goal. Every time we play with our rivals to win the Premier League, every game is tough, so we're very happy we got the three points."

Hernandez chose to not focus on all the controversies, instead focusing on the vital victory. "We don't care," he said of the manner of the victory. "We win, we have the three points.

"That was the only thing we had on our mind. Probably for some people it was very controversial, for other people not.

"For us, we won the three points and it is very difficult to come here to Stamford Bridge and take the three points, and we're very lucky and happy with that."

United manager Sir Alex Ferguson was full of praise for the Mexican, who scored his second straight winner after his two-goal effort against Braga in the Champions League. "You want to win the big games and Chelsea hadn't lost a match and are top of the league so it was an important win," Ferguson told the club's official website.

"We could've been four-up as we had some fantastic football through Rafael and Antonio (Valencia) and we tore them apart on that side. I think they took a long time to get their game going but I was worried in the 15-minute period before half-time.

"We could've started the game a bit better in the second half but started to play better when they got their second goal. It was a wake-up call to be honest.

"At that point, I had Chicharito warming up and then they had a man sent off so it consolidated that opinion to bring him on. He's brilliant in there. He took a lot of punishment too.

"There were a lot of tackles against him but he's such a courageous little lad, such a tough, wee cookie, and he's always going to be a threat to defenders. He's scored the winning goal in an important game."

Get the Most Popular Stories in a Weekly Newsletter
Array

Join the Conversation

  • Get Connected
  • Share
  • Like Us on Facebook
  • @sportswr
  • Recommend on Google
Real Time Analytics