Michael Carrick claims Lisandro Martinez’s red card against Leeds was certainly one of the worst refereeing decisions he has ever seen as he slammed the ‘shocking’ officiating.
Manchester United were beaten 2-1 at home by Leeds on Monday night because the Yorkshire side enjoyed an enormous boost to their Premier League survival probabilities.
Noah Okafor scored each of the visitors’ goals, each inside the first half hour, before Martinez was shown a straight red on 56 minutes.
The Red Devils defender was adjudged to have pulled Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s hair, with VAR instructing the referee to have a take a look at the replay, which led to the sending off.
Carrick was seething in regards to the decision, while he also felt Calvert-Lewin fouled Leny Yoro within the construct as much as Okafor’s opener.
‘We didn’t start the sport particularly well. We obviously conceded,’ Carrick told Sky Sports.
‘Leny Yoro gets a forearm smashed behind his head after which they rating the primary goal, so that they didn’t determine to overturn that call, in order that was a giant moment in the sport.
‘We didn’t quite have the rhythm, we didn’t click, we had some moments but it surely wasn’t quite there for big parts of the primary half.
Second half I believed the boys went about it, stayed positive and fought for every little thing and tried to get something out of the sport after one other shocking, shocking decision to send Licha off.
‘That’s two games in a row we’ve had decisions like that go against us, but that’s certainly one of the worst I’ve seen.’
A hair pull is adjudged to be violent conduct, which is a straight red card, but Carrick couldn’t understand how the beautiful minor pull will be seen as worse as a whack in the top with an arm.
‘You possibly can elbow Leny Yoro for the primary goal, within the side of the top, then you definately can throw your arm in Licha’s face,’ said the Manchester United interim boss. ‘Then as he’s off balance due to it, he half touches the back of his hair, which pulls the bobble out and results in it looking like… I don’t even know what it looks like. It’s not a pull, it’s not a tug, it’s not aggressive. He touches it and gets sent off.
‘Worst of all he was sent to overturn it as a transparent and obvious error. It’s shocking.’
On the choices, Jamie Carragher had little sympathy for the criticism over the primary goal, defending Calvert-Lewin.
‘No, I all the time think every challenge looks worse in slow motion, but for me, no,’ the previous Liverpool defender told Sky Sports.
‘Once you rise up you wish that leverage together with your arms. For me, I wouldn’t expect a foul there.’
There was more sympathy on the Martinez red card, with Roy Keane accepting that a red card comes by the letter of the law, but this case felt harsh.
‘Once you class this as violent conduct, as ex-players, that seems really harsh,’ said the Irishman. ‘But we’ve seen other players, [Michael] Keane at Everton, it’s harsh, but when we’re the laws of the sport then you have got to just accept it.
‘You’ve obviously not going to agree with it, as Carrick is, he’s dissatisfied with it, but we’ve seen it occur before.’
Carragher thought it was ‘soft’ suggesting most fans can be pondering: ‘Come on, that will not be a red card, behave yourself.’
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