Tottenham captain Ledley King is not using the controversial penalty to Manchester United as an excuse for the team's second half capitulation.

Spurs were up 2-0 against the reigning champions at Old Trafford on the weekend but after giving away a questionable penalty went on to lose 5-2.

King says the performance after half-time was not good enough and an incident like the penalty cannot be blamed for such a swing in momentum.

"We knew at half time the game was far from over and we spoke about that at the break, about nullifying their threat and that they would come out all guns blazing in the second half," King told Spurs' official website.

"The longer we could keep them out the better chance we'd have.

"You can tell by everyone's reaction when the penalty was given the disappointment we all felt.

"There is still no excuse for us to crumble the way we did but that took a lot out of us. It was a crazy spell after that.

"Maybe we still felt a bit hard done by but the fact is that gave the stadium such a lift, the atmosphere completely changed.

"It was backs to the wall stuff after that, we conceded the second goal soon after and it went downhill from there.

"We didn't at any stage get our composure back.

"You have to say fair play to United for applying that pressure but from our point of view we all feel it would have been a totally different game if they hadn't scored the first goal when they did.

"That's football though and we have to move on."