‘Fulham assistant boss Christian Damiano was not amused by Barthez’s penalty gamesmanship:
"The referee was in position to handle the situation between Gary Neville and Marlet. He did not see Barthez's position. He whistled and the goal was empty but Steed was correct and he waited even though he could have shot at the goal. It was the first time he has missed a penalty and, yes, the waiting put him off a little bit. Barthez tried to take his time and disturb the attention of Malbranque. When the referee whistles, you can shoot, but Barthez put trouble on Malbranque."
Asked if Barthez had behaved correctly, Damiano replied: "No, he profited from the situation. You might say it's cheating, I don't know. We could have exploited the situation and could have won against a great team. It was very close but Barthez saved two or three great chances. He played great."
Alex Ferguson defended Barthez:
"It should never have been a penalty in the first place. Justice was done when it was saved. Fabien is a professional and professionals do those kind of things. Players have been doing that for years but I've got no complaints about the yellow card."
He added: "We were in the comfort zone, playing some nice football. They were not threatening us and then suddenly you find yourselves 1-0 down. You do not deserve it but you have to do something about it. It was static in the first half but it picked up in the second half and Ole Gunnar's goal fuelled it some more. In the end, it was a fantastic game."
"It started hurting during the Leverkusen game and I woke up in the middle of the night and I could hardly move my left leg, I played through it for a few games but it got gradually worse and we agreed that I needed to get it sorted before it got any worse. I had never had an op before and I was hoping to go through my career without having one. Unfortunately it wasn't to be but maybe I can go 500 games on the spin now"