‘Behave yourself!’ – Carragher fumes over Man Utd red as Carrick slams ‘shocking decision’
Jamie Carragher has hit out at the decision to send off Lisandro Martinez as Man Utd lost 2-1 to Leeds in the Premier League on Monday night.
The Red Devils were outplayed early on as their arch-rivals took a two-goal lead through a brace of Noah Okafor strikes with the visitors making the perfect start.
Martinez did not help their cause on 56 minutes with the Argentina international sent off for pulling Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s hair after VAR review.
Casemiro got one back on 69 minutes but it wasn’t enough as the Red Devils suffered only their second defeat in 11 matches under interim boss Michael Carrick.
The incident that saw Martinez sent off was not picked up by on-field referee Paul Tierney, although Calvert-Lewin revealed after the match that he complained to officials about having his hair tugged by the Man Utd man.
Man Utd defender Martinez wasn’t shown red until after Tierney had assessed the footage on a pitchside monitor and Carragher thought it was an extremely harsh decision.
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Carragher said on Sky Sports: “Howard Webb, who we speak to maybe two or three times a season, comes out with a line on certain situations that I actually like; sometimes it’s not about the rulebook, it’s about actually what the game wants.
“I don’t think any football fan, I don’t think anybody – any football manager, any player watching that at home, is sitting there thinking, ‘Yeah, I think that’s a red card’.
“I think everybody in the game is looking at that and thinking, ‘Oh, come on. That is not a red card. Behave yourself!'”
Carrick was of the same opinion of Carragher with the Man Utd interim boss calling the Martinez sending off an “absolutely shocking decision”.
The Man Utd boss said: “There is an arm in the face of Lisandro to start. He goes to balance and touches his (Calvert-Lewin’s) hair.
“The bobble comes out. It’s not aggressive. We need to be careful where the game is going. If you can do arms in the face, that’s alright. Absolutely shocking decision. I hope Licha is still available.”
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Despite the disappointing defeat, Carrick remained level-headed after the match, he said in his post-match press conference: “I have to say, whatever happened tonight, it’s not going to suddenly change my opinion on what we are as a team.
“We’ve built enough of a foundation to kind of understand what we’re good at and what we need to improve on.
“Moving forward at the end of the season, the games are going to be the games and it’s a big end of the season. There’s no getting away from it.
“The kind of mentality and the character of the boys wanting to do well and trying to give everything, I’ve never doubted that, and I won’t doubt that.
“I think, from what I’ve seen every day and in the games, it’s there. We can certainly improve at certain things so I’m not saying that but the boys are desperate to do well and desperate to improve. We’ve done a lot of good things so far, we need to do more of that for sure.”
