BOURNEMOUTH, England — Manchester United head coach Michael Carrick branded the decisions of referee Stuart Attwell “baffling” and “astonishing” after his side suffered perceived penalty injustice in a dramatic 2-2 Premier League draw at Bournemouth.
United took the lead in the 61st minute courtesy of a Bruno Fernandes penalty after Bournemouth defender Álex Jiménez tugged on Matheus Cunha‘s shirt in the box.
Minutes later Diallo was brought down by an Adrien Truffert in the area, only for VAR to deem the contact “was not sufficient for a foul.”
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United’s screams for a penalty were waved away. Seconds later, Bournemouth drove the ball down the opposite end and levelled the scores through Ryan Christie.
United went back ahead on 71 minutes when Bournemouth’s James Hill accidentally nodded a Fernandes corner into his own net.
However, the atmosphere among the travelling support turned when Maguire brought down striker Evanilson with a push in the box that resulted in him getting a red card and Bournemouth an equaliser from the penalty spot.
While Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola said the Diallo collision was “never a penalty,” Carrick said the decisions involving Cunha and Diallo were exactly the same.
“He’s definitely got one of them wrong because he’s given one penalty for us for the same thing that he’s not given one,” Carrick told a news conference.
“There’s a two-arm grab. The Matheus one he gives, the second one on Amad he doesn’t, which I think is almost identical, really. If you have two hands on someone in the box and they go over and they’re in control of the ball, for me it’s two penalties.
“It will be interesting to see which one they acknowledge is wrong: the one we got or the one we didn’t get.
“It’s a huge moment. They don’t give it, they go down the other end and score and then it becomes all of a sudden, ‘oh, it needs to be a bigger penalty to overturn,’ just because they scored, when actually it’s a penalty and it should be a penalty if you’ve already given one.
“It’s baffling really to make sense of that. And because they score, the game flips a little bit and changes.
“We defended with the 10 men after all that very well. But the penalty one is just astonishing, I have to say. One of them must be wrong.”
Man United captain Bruno Fernandes also expressed his frustrations, adding that he believes “small” players do not get the decisions they deserve from referees.
“Not getting a penalty and then we get a penalty against where it’s the same situation as Amad — one is one, one is not,” he told Sky Sports.
“I know it’s difficult for the referee to give two penalties to the same team in one game, but I don’t understand why VAR doesn’t get involved in that situation or with Harry [Maguire] because either one is a penalty and so is the other, or none of them are.
“Amad is getting to a point where he’s going to shoot, and he gets pushed — you can see that something puts him completely out of balance. It’s frustrating for the small players because they always say the small players are soft, and when it’s the bigger players, they end up giving the fouls.
“I think the other situation is a penalty, but I also think the one on Amad is a penalty and that could’ve changed the game.”
United remain in third place after the Premier League and will hope that Liverpool, Aston Villa and Chelsea also drop points this weekend as they fight to finish in the top five to qualify for next season’s Champions League.
PA contributed to this report.