Soccer: Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson was furious with the performance of assistant referee Simon Beck after his side were held to a 1-1 draw at White Hart Lane.

Robin van Persie opened the scoring on 25 minutes and United looked like holding on for the win after Spurs squandered numerous chances in the second half. However, Clint Dempsey finally equalised in the second minute of injury time to give the home side a share of the spoils.

Ferguson was especially displeased with the linesman’s decision to keep his flag down when Wayne Rooney looked to have been fouled in the box by Steven Caulker.

“For me it was a poor performance from him, why he never gave a penalty I don’t know,” Ferguson said. “I think he had a shocking game today, he’s had a bad game and we never got anything from that side of the pitch.”

Ferguson did give credit to Tottenham, but felt his side should have killed the game off in the second half.

“Tottenham worked their socks off, you have to give them credit,” he added. “They kept pumping the ball in the box and got their reward. You’d have thought we would have dealt with it better. We should have killed them off on the counter-attack in the second half. It was the final ball that was letting us down.

“It was a difficult tie, teams will drop points here, there is no doubt about that.”

Tottenham manager Andre Villas-Boas had a very different view and felt his side deserved even more than their point.

“We dominated the whole game, played well and deserved to win to be fair,” he said. “We had 60 per cent possession against United, 15 shots against four and should have won. Champions like United have to go through moments like this but I think we deserved this last-minute goal.

“We set our targets high, we wanted to win. We understood you are not going to go two or three up but we managed to get at least a point and a deserved point.”

Spurs midfielder Scott Parker said: “We put a lot of pressure on them in the second half and I think we got the goal we deserved.

Parker, who was making his first league start since April, added: “I was pleased to be back out there, it’s been a long while. It was a tough game but I enjoyed it and hope I can stay fit now.

“We have shown real resilience. We had a good first half of the season and need to push on. Our objective is fourth (in the league) but if we can improve on that, then so be it.”