Ferguson screamed at Nani with X-rated warning after Carragher's horror tackle
Manchester United winger Nani was on the end of a horror tackle from Liverpool's Jamie Carragher back in March 2011, but United boss Sir Alex Ferguson would end up taking aim at his own player, a former star claimed.
League leaders United travelled to Anfield off the back of a defeat at Chelsea which saw their Premier League advantage cut to three points. After Carlo Ancelotti's Blues pipped them to the previous season's title, their grasp on top spot was far from secure.
Ferguson's team lost the game, while Nani - who rounded off a nightmare first half as Carragher went in high on him - left the field on a stretcher. United, meanwhile, would taste back-to-back league defeats for the first time in nearly two full years, making for an angry manager for a number of reasons.
It had been an afternoon to forget for the visitors. Dirk Kuyt tapped in an opener from pretty much on the goal-line after a jinking run from Luis Suarez, and the Dutchman headed home a second after a wayward header from Nani inside his own area.
Things got worse for Nani on the stroke of half-time, though. Carragher went in high and recklessly, leaving the former Sporting CP star in tears on the ground while players argued around him.
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The United player was carried off on a stretcher, unable to play any further part as Kuyt completed his hat-trick before Javier Hernandez - Nani's replacement - delivered a late consolation. After the game, though, it felt as though some had a bigger problem with Nani's tears than with Carragher's foul, which only earned the defender a yellow card.
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Players from both sides reacted after Carragher's foul on Nani (Alex Livesey/Getty Images)Nani had at first attempted to confront his assailant, but the adrenaline soon wore off and he collapsed to the ground in tears. Patrice Evra was among the United players to rush to the scene, but he would later shed light on his own manager's reaction during an appearance on Rio Ferdinand's FIVE YouTube show.
"We came, we started fighting with Liverpool players, Steven Gerrard, and then Scholesy came and he saw Nani crying. He said ‘f*** that,' he said 'let's go’.
"After that Ferguson gave him two weeks off because he says he needed to recover from that because we were waiting for him. In that team we didn't care, we were ready to kill him.
“Because you know someone crying at Anfield... and even Ferguson, you remember when he said: ‘I hope your legs are f*****g broken I really hope your legs are broken'.
“First of all, Ferguson was killing Nani when he was wlways falling on the floor, he was like 'You can't be a United player and doing that'."
Publicly, though, Ferguson made it clear who he thought was deserving of blame. "I don't know what Carragher was thinking but I do know what he did was not football," the title-winning boss said.
"I don't want protection. I just want the referees to be fair. If it is a red card, they have to give it. If they give the card, the next time the player doesn't make the tackle."
Nani was stretchered off after the foul (PAUL ELLIS/AFP via Getty Images)Carragher sent an apology to the United dressing room after the game, but Nani wasn't satisfied. Days later, he would explain both why he was in tears and why he had a specific problem with the challenge.
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"When I saw my leg for the first time, I thought my season was finished," he said, per The Guardian. "That is why I was crying."
"Afterwards, the doctor saw my leg and said I had been lucky because it just needed stitches and I would be out for two or three weeks. He is surprised that I could recover even quicker."
It wasn't the first time Nani and Carragher had locked horns, either, and the Portuguese had not forgotten. "I don't know what Carragher was thinking but I do know what he did was not football," he said.
"He came to apologise after the game. But I was not happy. It is the second time he injured me. Before he put me out of the game for two months. He always tackles like that."
Carragher would eventually give his side of the story (Alex Livesey/Getty Images)Carragher, for his part, would later give an explanation. Speaking several years after the incident, once the dust had settled, he wasn't afraid to admit the opponent had got the better of him.
"March 11, not one of my finer moments," he told Sky Sports. "A bit of a dive from Nani. I tell you what my best memory of that is, not so much the tackle, Wayne Rooney's reaction.
""I was on favourable terms with the referee Phil Dowd and I got him on my own, pulled him in, and I said, 'He just beat me with skill'.
"Everyone else was fighting, I got him over as you do, experienced pro, and then Wayne Rooney came over and said, 'You won't believe it he's crying.'"
Dirk Kuyt scored all three of Liverpool's goals in their win (AFP/Getty Images)Carragher insisted he hadn't set out to injure the winger, suggesting his hand was forced when Ferguson put Nani one-on-one with him. "What I did was, someone got injured and I went from centre-back to right-back and as soon as I went Alex Ferguson put Nani to the left-wing, straight away," the former defender said.
"[I thought] I'm going to get tight and I'm going to tackle him or foul him, there's no way I'm letting him get the ball and run at me, so I have got there and the ball did jump up a little bit, and I went for it, and the ball just disappeared."
While Liverpool might have been victorious on the day, United - and Nani - would have the last laugh. Not only did he avoid a broken leg, but he returned later that same month to help set Ferguson's team seal another title win despite their Anfield blip.
In October of that year, the teams would face their next league meeting, with Steven Gerrard and Hernandez exchanging goals in a 1-1 draw. Ferguson decided Nani would start that one on the bench.
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