by Aston Villa’s Leon Bailey has criticised the refereeing performance during Manchester United’s 3-1 defeat on Sunday following a heated on-field clash with Lisandro Martinez.
Erik ten Hag’s side were stunned by the home team as Villa scored twice inside the opening 11 minutes, thanks to goals from Bailey and Lucas Digne. Former Arsenal manager Unai Emery would have been delighted with his new club’s start, as they put United under pressure from the outset.
Although the Reds managed to reduce the deficit to a single goal moments before half-time, Jacob Ramsey made it 3-1 just four minutes into the second-half to restore Villa’s two goal lead.
A frustrating afternoon for Ten Hag’s side was encapsulated after the hour mark when Bailey and Martinez clashed on the pitch. The Argentinian was guiding the ball out of play when the Villa man put pressure on the defender.
Martinez then showed the fiery side of his game as he appeared to elbow the Villa forward in the midriff on two occasions, showing his frustration on the pitch. Neither the linesman nor referee Anthony Taylor took issue with the incident and VAR did not intervene following the altercation.
Bailey was far from happy with the outcome, as he took to social media to protest over what he saw as a poor performance from the officials.
He tweeted the following: “Very disappointed in the referees today, I couldn’t breath for a second after getting elbowed twice in my rib. The linesman went on to say I shouldn’t be saying anything because I was doing just the same thing to Martinez. Sometimes I don’t understand why we got VAR. SMH [shaking my head].”
