Ferguson baffled by Rafa outburst

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The Reds boss hit out at what he saw as Ferguson's complete ignorance of the Football Association's `Respect' campaign towards officials, and complaints made by the United boss about the Premier League fixture list.

But Ferguson said: "Well I think you have got to cut through the venom of it, and hopefully he will reflect and understand that what he was saying was absolutely ridiculous. I think he was an angry man and I think he was disturbed for some reason. That's all I've got to say about it."

Liverpool boss Benitez had said: "We had a meeting in Manchester with managers and the Football Association about the `Respect' campaign.

"And I was very clear, forget the campaign because Mr Ferguson was killing the referees, killing Mr (Martin) Atkinson, killing Mr (Keith) Hackett.

"All managers need to know is that only Mr Ferguson can talk about the fixtures, can talk about referees and nothing happens.

"We need to know that I am talking about facts, not my impression. There are things that everyone can see every single week."

Asked to respond to Benitez's assertion that he was merely quoting "facts", Ferguson added: "Well they're not because it's well-documented.

"I'm not going to get into that because at this moment in time I think we should concentrate on chasing the leaders, which is Liverpool, and we've got games in hand and we want to try to catch them up."