Goal should have been disallowed

Chelsea captain John Terry admitted his side's controversial second goal should not have been awarded following their 5-1 FA Cup semi-final thrashing of Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday. Chelsea took a 2-0 lead early in the second half when Juan Mata's low shot hit a tangle of bodies on the Tottenham goal-line. Television replays appeared to show the ball had been prevented from going over the line by Terry himself and a Tottenham defender but referee Martin Atkinson awarded a goal. In the end, furher strikes from Ramires, Frank Lampard and Florent Malouda put the tie comfortably out of Tottenham's reach but Mata's strike was the major talking point after the match. And Terry was quick to confess he believed Tottenham had been the victims of an injustice. "I thought Mata's strike hit me and didn't go over, but the linesman's seen it and given it," Terry told BBC radio. "I honestly don't think it went over the line but the linesman gave it and there's nothing we can do about that. Spurs are one of the best sides in the league. It was a great performance and a great result." Tottenham defender Ledley King could not hide his frustration at the decision. "I didn't think it crossed the line. I don't see how the referee could have seen it," King said. "We got ourselves back in the game but we got caught out when they picked us off." Carlo Cudicini, the Tottenham goalkeeper, agreed with King that the referee was wrong to award the goal when he couldn't be certain it was in. "Of course everyone knows it wasn't a goal," the former Chelsea player said. "I wasn't sure if the ball was in or out at first because I had a few players in front of me, but my feeling was it wasn't a goal. "Some of our players went to the linesman and he said it was the referee's decision. "As a referee you have to be 100 per cent sure to give a goal. Obviously he wasn't sure because it wasn't in. I think it is a really bad decision." Chelsea stalwart Lampard, meanwhile, brushed off the controversy, saying regardless of the decision, the Blues had done enough to win. "The referee has given it. We didn't have a conversation about it, but over the course of the game we deserved to win," Lampard said. "It was an amazing game. I thought we played brilliantly and we deserved to win with the amount we created."