Manchester United manager Erik Ten Hag slammed the VAR process after their 2-1 loss against West Ham at the London Stadium on Sunday. Video Assistant Referee (VAR) Michael Oliver suggested an on-field penalty check after Matthijs de Ligt and Danny Ings ran into each other at the conclusion of normal time.
While the collision between the two players wasn’t much, referee David Coote decided to award a late penalty to the home team. Jarrod Bowen was able to take the chance with both hands as he scored from the spot kick after Summerville and Casemiro scored a goal for each of the two teams.
“So first of all, in football it is not always the best team winning, and today there was clear and obvious and clear and obvious wasn’t how the VAR worked,” Ten Hag said.
“How they worked, how they run their process. And before the season they explained the process of the VAR and only when it’s clear and obvious then they should interfere. So what they didn’t do against Spurs where they should have done it to interfere with the red card of Bruno [Fernandes]. There was a wrong decision and now they make again a wrong decision interfering and both has big impact on the scores of the games.”
When asked if he thinks Coote was more influenced in this case by Oliver’s standing as a more senior referee, Ten Hag said: “I don’t criticise any personnel, but I criticise the process and… The off-field was obviously, the VAR was Michael Oliver but also the on-field — you have to make a decision in the final moment. And he did I think three minutes to decide and to make this call. But then you have to show big personality to recall this decision.”
With this loss, the Red Devils have gone down to 14th place in the Premier League with only three wins in nine games. The Dutchman feels his team hasn’t had the rub of the green on their side.
“In this moment, definitely the luck is not on my side [but] it’s not about me, it’s about the team, and it’s not on our side,” he said.
“And last season was not different, but in the end we turned this around and we are [were] so determined it would be the same case today.
“But we have to turn this around and it will turn around if we keep playing like we are playing now and, in this block — Brentford, Fenerbahce, today, we played really good football.”
United will next take on Leicester City at Old Trafford on Wednesday.
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