Shot at Rovers' style fired by United's defeat, says Hughes

The Blackburn Rovers manager Mark Hughes has criticised Sir Alex Ferguson for "unwarranted and harmful" comments after Manchester United's 4-3 defeat at Ewood Park on Wednesday night.

Ferguson, who managed Hughes at United, accused Blackburn of "foul after foul after foul", and later said: "I don't think they played any football at all. They're difficult to play against and stopped the game all the time."

Hughes said: "It was a great advert for Premiership football - great goals, great incidents, comedy errors and two teams trying to win the game. It was also a great performance and a great result for us, and most people enjoyed the game - with a few eminent exceptions. That was the one disappointment for me because I'm not sure where Sir Alex is coming from. It's also disappointing he had to single out some of my players and try to put a slant on the game which I felt wasn't there.

"I think if Sir Alex is watching a video of the game, he would probably like to revise his opinion. Sometimes your view is clouded by the events, and if the game has gone against you then that further shapes your opinion. But I felt the comments were unwarranted and harmful to what we are trying to do here.

"We've spent over 12 months trying to turn around people's opinions of us, and this season we've done that. We've done it by playing well, playing progressively, winning games and scoring great goals.

"I just feel somebody as high-profile as Sir Alex coming out with some of the comments he made puts us on the back foot again."