Manchester United lost 2-0 to Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday evening with a poor second half showing. However, in the first half United were on top, with 14 shots to Spurs’ seven, and expected goals of 1.28 to Spurs’ 0.51.
With 26 minutes on the clock, Cristian Romero blocked a goal-bound shot with his outstretched arm, but both the referee and VAR failed to make the correct decision in awarding a penalty. At 1-0 up, forcing Spurs to come at us more and United having more opportunity to catch them on the break, we can only speculate how different the result could have been if the correct decision had been made.
At the beginning of the week, Wolves fans were similarly aggrieved after Andre Onana clashed with Sasa Kalajdzic towards the end of our 1-0 victory. After the game, referees’ boss Jon Moss apologised to Wolves manager Gary O’Neil for missing the “clear and obvious error”. Referee Simon Hooper was demoted from Premier League officiating for this weekend’s games as a result too.
Over the next week, every media outlet continued to talk about the Onana decision, with every man and his dog was asked their opinion. In contrast, the blatant Romero handball wasn’t even discussed during the half-time highlights on Sky Sports, after a half that had produced no goals and few other talking points.
After the game, captain Bruno Fernandes quite rightly pointed out the hypocrisy in the way the two incidents have been treated in a post-match interview with Sky Sports.
Last week they made a big thing on United not having a penalty against them [Wolves]. I want to see what’s going to happen this week if it’s going to happen the same show they did last week. I want to see if Jon Moss also comes to apologise to our dressing room like they said he did to the manager of Wolves.
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