Pearce: 'Ronaldo Did No Wrong'

Ronaldo had backing from a strange source as Manchester City boss Stuart Pearce claimed Ronaldo was unfortunate to be sent off. The Portugal winger is set to miss Wednesday's FA Cup replay with Burton, Sunday's Premiership encounter with Liverpool and the Carling Cup return against Blackburn unless the referee revises his opinion.

Pearce: 'It didn't look like a poor challenge and I didn't think it was a sending off.'

Pearce admitted he borrowed an old trick from Ferguson in an effort to galvanise City, who he felt were not given due credit in the build-up.

Pearce: 'When people were talking about the game this week, it was as though we were Burton Albion. We are not Burton Albion. We have some great international players in our side. If we are on all firing on all cylinders we can beat anyone on any given day.

'Manchester United are a great club, one of the best in the world. They have the ability to spend £5million to bring in cover at left-back. That might be my entire transfer budget, which puts this result into perspective.'