Ferguson hails Manchester United's courage after win over Newcastle
United boss praises courage of players after dramatic win in seven-goal thriller against Newcastle, but reveals Rooney will be out for three weeks
Manchester United's 4-3 victory over Newcastle United opened a seven-point gap at the top of the Premier League table, but the news was not all positive for Alex Ferguson and his team.
Ferguson revealed after the game that Wayne Rooney has a knee ligament injury that will sideline him for three weeks.
The injury had already ruled Rooney out of an amazing game that saw Newcastle take the lead on three occasions, only to lose to Javier Hernandez's 90th-minute winning goal.
Ferguson was lucky to escape being punished for confronting match officials.
He marched onto the field before the second half kicked off and remonstrated with referee Mike Dean, assistant Jake Collin and fourth official Neil Swarbrick over the decision to award the visitors a second goal after 28 minutes.
Dean over-ruled Collin, who had initially flagged to disallow the goal because Newcastle forward Papiss Cisse was in an offside position when Danny Simpson crossed for Jonny Evans to put through his own goal. "I think it was a bad decision," said Ferguson. "He [Dean] has not got the benefit of a replay, which I had, and could see it was a mistake. Mike Dean said it was an own goal so it didn't matter that the player was offside, but when you see the video replay, he [Cisse] is certainly interfering with the play.
