[Mike Keegan] Exclusive: Furious Man United to launch formal complaint to referees’ chief Howard Webb after ‘yet another VAR blunder’ with Amad Diallo controversially denied penalty at Bournemouth – leaving Michael Carrick ‘baffled’

It has to be done. Playing nice and accepting apologies clearly doesn’t help us.

**Article:**

**Manchester United are today set to make a formal complaint to refs’ body PGMO after they were controversially denied a second penalty in last night’s draw with Bournemouth.**

**Daily Mail Sport understands Old Trafford officials have been left furious at what they believe is ‘yet another VAR blunder’ which has cost their Champions League chasing side.**

Amid extraordinary scenes, forward Amad Diallo appeared to be wrestled to the ground with no attempt to play the ball inside the area with the visitors leading 1-0.

Referee Stuart Attwell, who was positioned just yards away, waved play on and from the resulting passage Bournemouth levelled through Ryan Christie. A subsequent VAR check then failed to overturn what may well have been a two-goal swing.

To rub further salt into the wounds, after United had retaken the lead Harry Maguire was sent off for a foul on Evanilson, before Junior Kroupi tucked away the resulting penalty to level. The view within United is that Maguire’s foul was similar to that committed by Bournemouth’s Adrien Truffert on Diallo, which went unpunished.

**Senior officials at Old Trafford believe the foul on Amad was a clear one and that, had the penalty been given, the likelihood was that Bruno Fernandes would have scored from the spot for the second time to give Michael Carrick’s men a 2-0 lead midway through the second-half.**

Instead, within a minute the scores were level.

As Daily Mail Sport has previously reported, United have already made representations to PGMO boss Howard Webb following what they see as ‘numerous errors’ which have cost them valuable points. They include the failure to send off Brentford’s Nathan Collins for denying a clear goalscoring opportunity (the offence for which Maguire saw red at the Vitality Stadium), the failure to award them a penalty at Wolves and the disallowing of a goal by Lisandro Martinez in a 2-2 draw at Burnley they felt should have been allowed to stand. Attwell was again the referee at Turf Moor.

Following the game caretaker manager Michael Carrick spoke of his astonishment at what had unfolded. ‘For him (Atwell) to give one penalty and not the other… I find it crazy,’ he said. ‘I cannot understand it. Mental. It’s astonishing. One of them must be wrong.

‘A big opportunity to go 2-0 up and we get one penalty and not the other. It’s exactly the same thing really – a two-handed grab. He’s got one wrong so, I don’t know which one but he doesn’t give us the second one.’

**Carrick’s view is shared by those above him at United who are fully behind their manager.**

**It is understood that Jason Wilcox, United’s director of football, plans to raise the matter with Webb later today in a formal capacity.**

United will also now be without Maguire for their clash with Roses rivals Leeds United.

**In addition, with the score at 2-2 and the 10-men visitors attempting to see the game out for a point commentators expressed surprise when nine minutes were added on.**

**United are also likely to ask for an explanation of where those nine minutes came from.**

PGMO have been contacted for comment.

The draw leaves third-placed United looking over the shoulders at the chasing pack of Liverpool, Aston Villa and Chelsea. Villa can close the gap to a single point with victory over West Ham tomorrow.

Finally. Put some bloody pressure on them. We keep getting shafted because there is no blow back if they mess up against us it’s about time there’s pushback

We’ve tried to take the high road with stuff like this and nothing changes. I don’t think it’s helpful to accuse officials of being impartial but we should be complaining about how the same incompetent official has now fucked us over twice in a single season.

If you give the Maguire foul (it was a foul), then the Amad foul is a penalty. If you don’t give either I think you have both managers complaining but at least you have consistency. Giving one but not the other is atrocious officiating.

That doesn’t happen to Fergie, Pep, Klopp, Jose etc. For too long we’ve had managers that are scared to speak out. Absolutely loved Carrick last night and more of that could be better in the long run than a stoppage time winner and him keeping his gob shut.

and nothing will change. The PGMOL will keep defending “their mates”, referees will remain incompetent and controversy brings in the money

Thank Christ, finally. Honestly, and it obviously may be bias, but I feel fucked over since the scum prick went crying that we had a lot of penalties. Shit decisions always happen, everyone hates refs, but goddamn, it’s not fouls, it feels every season we have so many blatantly pens denied that it’d be hard to actually see it not given in other games. A couple seasons ago I remember it was genuinely so hard for us to get a damn penalty and it just got better since then but still not good

If this gets them to actually fucking give us shit, good

The same ref has costed us 4 points .

See mistakes happen and ref are also humans so there would’ve errors but problem is how consistently they make these errors . People learn but PGMOL does not.

Also we should understand that if amad was given pen then Maguire situation does not even happens.

Ref was afraid to give two pen in row and wanted var to bail him out, but it then resulted in goal and var was like no we don’t get in that mess .

You need an independent body on VAR. Right now it’s like checking your own homework.

I don’t normally advocate for people to lose their jobs but Stuart Attwell needs to be fired and permanently banned from officiating any football. There’s a reason why you don’t see English refs given any big tournaments or continental games.

This bum alone has cost us 4 points in the past couple of months. Ridiculous. While we’re at it we need to take action against Craig Pawson on VAR too because he was the same VAR at the Burnley game as well as this one and didn’t wanna do his job

We’ve seen how Arteta’s side have been given favourable officiating after his constant bitching and moaning (even getting Attwell banned for 2 years from refereeing Arsenal games after the manager called his display disgraceful) so why shouldn’t we get some advantage our way too?

Does this mean we can demand for Atwell and Pawson to never ref a United game again like Liverpool did with the VAR officials

The simple issue is that VAR care more about protecting their referee on the pitch then making the right decision. For them it’s somehow seen as an embarrassment for a referee to go to a monitor and it overtakes control from the ref rather than them working together.

Nothing will come of it. The referee will be protected, as always, and probably rewarded rather than questioned. As long as Liverpool and Chelsea are where they are in the table, decisions like this will keep happening.

Finally we are saying enough is enough.

Refs need to be held accountable for not doing their jobs correctly, it’s simple as that.

Right move. Refs have shown with Klopp and Arteta that pressuring them does affect their fecisions. 

All we gonna get is an “apology” next week that means fuck all until they can make the right decisions on the day.

I’m extremely happy to see this. Blunders cost us at least 6 points this season. It’s wild.

We need to get Morocco’s lawyer involved.

Hallelujah we have woken up.

About fucking time, shit has been ridiculous for years now