Torres deserved to go, says Ferguson

Sir Alex Ferguson had little sympathy for Fernando Torres after the Chelsea striker's controversial sending off helped Manchester United end their 10-year wait for a Barclays Premier League win at Stamford Bridge.

Torres was shown a second yellow card for diving in United's highly contentious 3-2 win but replays showed he had actually been fouled by Jonny Evans. And Ferguson rubbed salt into the wound by claiming the striker only had himself to blame and declaring he himself would have stayed on his feet and scored had he still been a player.

"Well, did he intend to dive?" Ferguson said. "Jonny may have just caught him a little bit but you can either carry on running, which he could've done... But he chose to go down. He could've carried on and scored. That's what I can't understand."

Ferguson admitted the visitors were fortunate with the winning goal scored by substitute Javier Hernandez from an offside position after Chelsea had been reduced to nine men.

"They say that the winning goal came from an offside, so that's the bit of luck I think we got," he said. "I said before the game we've had some shocking decisions down here. It's very difficult to come here and get all the decisions - I must say that. It's very difficult."

The Torres incident prompted an angry touchline exchange between both benches and Chelsea boss Roberto Di Matteo was still smarting after the game. "We are massively disappointed that these key decisions were wrong," he said.

"It always seems to be in favour of the opposition. That's a massive disadvantage for us. I thought at 2-2, we looked like the team that were probably going to win the game. So it's a shame, because it was a good game of football with two good teams and the officials ruined it."

Told what Ferguson said about Torres, Di Matteo said: "Listen, whatever he says, it was a foul in our favour."

He added of referee Mark Clattenburg: "Surely when he's going to watch the images, he's going to realise that he made big mistakes."

The Italian was keen to play down his own spat with Ferguson, saying: "That's part of the game, emotions run high and you say things."