Is there anyone, anywhere who wasn't 100% convinced Fred would be hooked at half time to save the inevitable red card ? Awful awful management not to see that. By awful I mean brilliant. Oh and Maguire getting left of his massive arse for the 3rd goal was hilarious.
That Fred sequence... Jesus, even without fans refs lose their minds in Old Trafford.
First minute he goes in wild after a bad touch and ends up with his two studs showing and luckily skidding through Veratti's legs. No booking cos it's too early.
Then he absolutely cleans out Mbappe who's racing past him, ref didn't even call a free kick.
Then he
headbutts Paredes and the ref, for the first time in contemporary football history, decides it wasn't a good enough headbutt to merit a red card, so gives him a yellow. (Ignore whether Paredes was acting the dick or playacting or anything - this is exactly what Pepe and countless others have been sent off for).
Then — still in the first half — he mistimes another tackle, doesn't win the ball, stamps on Paredes' foot and goes down pretending he's injured... and Paredes gets booked.
Then finally, he goes in wild after another bad touch, does get a flick on the ball, without taking it away from the attacker and completely cleans out the PSG player, and the Savage and the BT lads are all "Well, that's a very harsh second yellow!"
Even Peter Walton, literal ref agent whose job it is to defend whatever decision they come up with, had to be like "Well, he had
made himself apparent to the referee with his performance so far."
Honestly the lad had six yellow cards worth of performance out there.
That ref was appalling last night in a way that mixed old schools appalling with new-school VAR assisted appalling.
