Yeah, I watched chunks of both games, that Luiz red was ridiculous. It's a foul, unintentional, but their legs do clash and yer man goes down, bloody theatrically. It is still a foul, and thus a pen. How the **** that means Luiz has to go I don't know. He is last man, is that why!? But the foul is a complete accident!? I thought they had done away with the double jeopardy of the pen and a red card? Really really harsh red.
As for Leno, ehh that's a red all day. Idiot.
I felt really sorry for Saints. Injury hit side, down to ten men straight away (that was also definitely a red) and then literally everything went against them. Pretty much every Utd shot flew in, or deflected and went in. VAR shafts them with another stupidly tight call. Does ANY football fan want to see goals ruled out for someone's upper arm, wee toe or arse being two millimetres offside? Club loyalty aside, those kind of decisions, where the lines come out and we spend two minutes guessing are killing football.
Then we get to the Martial penalty. I'm sorry, that's a dive. Yellow card to Tony and move on. But the ref and VAR say penalty AND red card!? HE.DOESNT.****ING.TOUCH.HIM!!!! How is that a penalty AND a red card!? Martial is going down before there is any contact, granted that is not uncommon nowadays, but there is no contact. Bednerack even tries to pull out. And he gets a red card!?
Absolutely pathetic. I have never been so disillusioned with football. The standard of decision making is killing the game for me. Genuinely close to just binning football, and I never thought I would say that.
Between the handball nonsense at the start of the season, to the VAR lines and the ridiculous decisions like that pen, Luiz's red, the offside law not applying to Rodri, football has gone. It's like ballet now. I thought it was supposed to be a contact sport, but as soon as anyone is touch they go down and "there's contact. Foul."
Contact. Does. Not. Equal. A. Foul.
Ohh and in case anyone thinks this is an anti Utd inspired rant, I also thought they should have had a pen in the first half. The foul on Cavanni(?). Yes the contact was JUST outside the box, but his foot was half over the line. Contact with the line makes it a penalty. At least that's what we were told when Sheffield Utd got a pen against Pool in very similar circumstances. Yer boy from SU only had his heal touching the line and that was given. Cavanni (?) is half over the line, but apparently the contact was outside the box so, no penalty. You can't have it both ways. Either both are pens or both are free kicks, but one can't be a pen while the other isn't.
I give up.
