Steve McManaman: Luis Suarez handball not "deliberate"

Steve McManaman has insisted that Luis Suarez did not deliberately handle the ball during Liverpool's FA Cup tie against Mansfield Town on Sunday afternoon.

The Uruguayan striker has come in for some heavy criticism from certain sections of the media for putting the ball into the net after it had clearly struck his hand - an incident that the match officials failed to spot.

However, ESPN analyst McManaman feels that other strikers would not have provoked such a controversial reaction.

"I saw it later in the day and I didn't think it was deliberate at all. It was a footballing incident. Having heard about the incident and the seeing the incident, I was really, really surprised [by the reaction]," he told Sports Mole.

"I think if it was 99 other centre-forwards we wouldn't have had the reaction that we got."

Liverpool went on to book their place in round four of the competition thanks to a 2-1 win.