Manchester United’s interim coach says a sending off for an accidental and innocent hair pull is “really concerning”
Michael Carrick has criticised the decision to send off Lisandro Martinez as “shocking” after Manchester United’s 2-1 home defeat to Leeds United.
Martinez was dismissed following a VAR review for an apparent hair-pull on Dominic Calvert-Lewin, with referee Paul Tierney making the decision after consulting the pitchside monitor. The defender appeared confused by the call and continued protesting as he left the field. Carrick strongly disagreed with the ruling.
“Lisandro, to start with, he gets an arm in the face, so he’s kind of off balance in the kind of off grappling,” Carrick said. “He almost just goes to touch him and grab his shirt, and he ends up catching his head, touches the back of his hair, the bobble comes out and you get a red card?
“It’s not aggressive. There’s no jolt. There’s no tug. There’s no sudden movement. He kind of touches it and glances through it. You’ve just got to be careful where the game’s going if we’re giving red cards for that. It’s a shocking decision, absolutely shocking.”
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On the pitch, Noah Okafor scored twice in the first half to put Leeds in control, securing their first Premier League win at Old Trafford in more than two decades. Casemiro pulled one back after the break, but United were unable to find an equaliser.
Calvert-Lewin said he alerted the referee to the incident but held no ill feeling toward Martinez.
“I don’t make the rules,” said Calvert-Lewin. “I felt my hair get pulled, told the ref, he makes the decisions. Unfortunate for [Martinez], whether he’s meant it or not. I hold no grudges.”
The decision has added to ongoing debate around similar incidents ending in sending offs this season, but Carrick does not like the implications.
“I have to say that’s really concerning if that’s going to be a sending off,” said Carrick. “I know he [Martinez] touched his hair. He can’t deny he touched his head.
“There’s a difference between touching somebody the way he has and brushing his hair to actually, really aggressively, tugging on it, which certainly we’ve seen at certain points where there’s a real kind of emphasis to. It’s really concerning.”
