'An absolute joke'

Nicholas: stunned by decision

All I can say is thank God for Wayne Rooney to deflect attention away from this referee. He is an absolute joke when he gets big games because he bottles it.

Charlie Nicholas
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• Bolton Wanderers
• Manchester United

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Man Utd 2-0 Bolton
Soccer Saturday analysis

"The worst penalty decision I have ever seen."

That was Charlie Nicholas' verdict on Rob Styles decision to award Manchester United a spot kick in the second half of Saturday's 2-0 win over Bolton at Old Trafford.

The key moment arrived on the hour mark when Jlloyd Samuel appeared to win the ball from Cristiano Ronaldo with a superb tackle, but referee Rob Styles pointed to the penalty spot.

Despite astonishment from both sets of players, Ronaldo stepped up to score and United cruised through to full-time with Wayne Rooney adding a splendid second after more good work from the Portuguese winger.

But although Nicholas felt United were worthy winners, he was left seething at the decision that swung the game in their favour.

"It's the worst I've ever seen," he said on Soccer Saturday.

"I've seen a lot of bad penalties. Ronaldo has maybe slightly over-run it and he looked as though he'd given up.

"He didn't dive, he has done that before and he has played for them, but I don't think he did that.

"Lloyd just went for a nice easy tackle on him, the timing was good, he got all of his studs on the ball cleanly, it knocked back off Ronaldo and stopped. The ball didn't really go anywhere.

"The reaction of the Manchester United players was to start giggling.

"Kammy will do it on Goals on Sunday and Andy Gray will be all over it and rightly so.

"All I can say is thank God for Wayne Rooney to deflect attention away from this referee. He is an absolute joke when he gets big games because he bottles it.

"If I could be a bit nicer I would be, but I don't know how he works in the Premier League.

"He was absolutely terrible. Look at some of the other decisions. He booked three of the Bolton players and Manchester United made a couple of rash challenges themselves and there was no sign of a yellow card. There was no sign of even having a word with the player.

"Man United thoroughly deserved to win this game, but that changed the whole issue of the game.

"It's an absolute shambles of a decision and is genuinely the worst I've ever seen."

More

While Nicholas feels United were the better side on the day, he still feels there is more to come from Sir Alex Ferguson's side, particularly when Dimitar Berbatov and Ronaldo get more games under their belts.

He added: "Berbatov didn't do much at all. The best part of the game was in the second half when Scholes and Rooney came on.

"There was good effort, there was good movement but they found it really difficult to break Bolton down, not because Bolton are brilliant defensively but because they had good numbers and there was a lack of quality in the final third.

"Berbatov needs games, Ronaldo needs games. Man United had an easy victory in the end and they deserved the victory but there's plenty more to come."