Manchester United overcame several questionable refereeing decisions to beat Arsenal in the FA Cup.
Everything was going according to plan for the Red Devils in North London when Bruno Fernandes opened the scoring in the second half.
Ruben Amorim may have wanted more possession and control from his side against Arsenal, but Manchester United defended well and were hurting the Gunners on the counter-attack.
However, the game was flipped on its head when Diogo Dalot was sent off by referee Andrew Madley. Within 10 minutes of Dalot’s dismissal, Arsenal equalised through Gabriel and were then awarded an extremely controversial penalty.
Madley pointed to the spot after Kai Havertz collided with Harry Maguire in the box. Rio Ferdinand slammed Madley by posting “bet the ref’s gutted” after United’s penalty shootout win.
Even former Manchester City star Micah Richards slammed the penalty decision.
Kai Havertz ‘conned the referee’ vs Man United
United posted ‘Justice’ on social media after Sunday’s victory in a dig towards the biased refereeing decisions during the match.
Madley awarded 25 free-kicks to Arsenal, while United were only fouled 10 times. Four United players were booked and that doesn’t even include the two yellow cards that were shown to Dalot.
Kai Havertz became a pantomime villain during the match after playing his part in the penalty and grabbing Manuel Ugarte by the throat in the aftermath. Justice was served when the Gunners forward saw his penalty saved by Altay Bayindir in the shootout.
Speaking on MUTV, former United defender Phil Bardsley slammed Havertz and accused him of conning the referee for the penalty.
“There’s no question that he dived,” Bardsley said. “He conned the referee in plain sight. The referee’s fell for it.”
“Harry Maguire has not made any contact with him at all, that’s a difficulty now the argument for and against VAR. If it was VAR they would have seen that was not a penalty at all.”
“I felt the referee was pretty poor, but not taking anything away from us, I thought we were fantastic.”
There was no VAR in action at The Emirates for the third-round FA Cup clash, meaning Madley’s penalty decision could not have been overturned.
What Ruben Amorim said about Man United penalty decision
United players were visibly shocked at the penalty call, with Maguire leading the protests after he was unfairly punished.
After the full-time whistle, Amorim was asked about the decision but the United boss was dismissive and eager to move on.
READ MORE: Ruben Amorim showed true colours with two completely different messages at Man Utd within 20 days
“Yeah, it’s far away,” Amorim said. “The players told me that it was not a penalty, but let’s move on. We go to the next round and focus on the next game.”
United have been drawn at home to Ruud van Nistelrooy’s Leicester City side for the fourth round, which is set to take place on February 8th.
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