Ruud van Nistelrooy claimed his Leicester City side were beaten in "offside time" during their FA Cup fourth-round clash with Manchester United on Friday. 

Bobby De Cordova-Reid had given the Foxes the lead with a close-range header three minutes before the break, only for Joshua Zirkzee to restore parity. 

And with extra time and potentially penalties looming, Harry Maguire popped up with the winner in the third minute of second-half stoppage time, but his header came with controversy. 

Maguire appeared to be in an offside position before connecting with Bruno Fernandes' free-kick, but with VAR not used at this stage of the competition, the goal was given. 

Leicester have now lost three of their four games against United in the FA Cup (W1), but Van Nistelrooy expressed his frustration at the officials' decision to award the winner.

"We were not defeated in 'Fergie time', we were defeated in offside time," Van Nistelrooy said shortly after the defeat at Old Trafford. 

Speaking on the lack of VAR, he added: "This wasn't necessary. Look, VAR, you have a couple of centimetres, a couple of inches.

"This was half a metre, clear in line. It's a hard one to take because the team deserved the draw in the end, the extra-time to stay in the game. You never know what happens.

"It was a very good team performance, started really well, pressing United on the ball, very, very stable, deserved to go 1-0 up at half-time.

"Of course, we know the second half is going to bring some pressure on us and some chances, but not even that much.

"We deserved to go into extra-time and go for the battle, and maybe penalties. Decisions like this, at our level, are hard to swallow."

United boss Ruben Amorim said his side were fortunate with the decision, and feels it vindicates the use of VAR, even if his side benefited on this occasion from its absence.

Amorim also suggested his side were due a bit of luck having seen Maguire himself concede a soft penalty in their penalty shoot-out win over Arsenal in the previous round. 

"With VAR it's not a goal," Amorim said. "I think it's important to have VAR because it's fair for the game.

"It's hard to lose like that with an offside play. But we deserve a little bit of luck."