Michael Carrick hit out at “one of the worst” refereeing decisions he had seen to send off Lisandro Martinez in Man Utd’s defeat to Leeds, with Sky Sports’ Jamie Carragher sympathetic with the Man Utd head coach.
Martinez saw red after VAR noticed a momentary hair pull on Dominic Calvert-Lewin in Man Utd’s 2-1 loss at Old Trafford, and after referee Paul Tierney was sent to the review monitor he was dismissed – and now faces a three-match ban.
The Argentine looked bemused as he left the pitch having been grappling with Calvert-Lewin at the time of the incident, with Carrick angered that the brief and, in his eyes unintentional, incident had been punished so harshly.
“It’s not a pull, it’s not a tug, it’s not aggressive, he touches it and gets sent off. Worst of all is he was sent to overturn it as a clear and obvious error. It’s shocking,” he told Sky Sports.
“He’s off-balance because of that, he half touches the back of his hair which pulls the bobble out and leads it to look like – I don’t even know what it looks like.
“That’s two games in a row we’ve had those decisions go against us, but that one was one of the worst I’ve seen.”
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FREE TO WATCH: Highlights from Manchester United’s match against Leeds in the Premier League.
Man Utd found themselves deservedly 2-0 down at half-time through a Noah Okafor double, but Carrick was further irritated by the decision to allow the man of the match’s early opener to stand after Calvert-Lewin had caught defender Leny Yoro in the face with an arm in the build-up.
“We didn’t start the game particularly well. We conceded, which came after Leny Yoro got a forearm smash in the back of his head,” he added.
“They didn’t decide to overturn that, which was a big moment in the game. We didn’t quite have the rhythm, we didn’t click. We had some moments but it wasn’t there for large parts of the half.”
Carra: People will think ‘it’s not a red card, behave yourself’
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Jamie Carragher and Roy Keane agreed that Lisandro Martinez didn’t deserve to be sent off for pulling Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s hair.
Martinez is not the first Premier League player to be sent off in similar circumstances this season after Everton’s Michael Keane saw red for a hair pull on Wolves forward Tolu Arokodare in January.
Guidance in the 2025-26 Premier League handbook, added following incidents in previous seasons, states players “will be sent off if they are clearly pulling the hair of an opponent with force” – something Carragher felt did not apply to either Keane or Martinez’s situations.
He told Monday Night Football: “I go back a couple of years. Marc Cucurella had something from a corner from Romero, and I don’t think anything happened to Romero. I almost think the officials knew what to do.
“It’s felt like from that period, it’s like, ‘hang on, if someone does that it’s a red card’. And that for me is 100-per-cent right, if someone really pulls someone’s hair like that. I think someone got sent off for pulling someone’s hair.
“But I thought the Michael Keane one [against Wolves in January] wasn’t a red card and I actually think this was softer.
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Gary Neville believes Man Utd’s defeat to Leeds was a reality check for Michael Carrick’s side.
“He’s going for the ball, Calvert-Lewin’s done nothing wrong, he’s just put his arm out. Martinez is almost grappling, he’s just trying to grab onto something. It could’ve been his shirt, it could’ve been anything.
“I think he’s got it for about half a second. We’ve looked at the rule, and we all agree with that. But Howard Webb comes out with a line on certain situations that I like – sometimes it’s not just about the rule book, it’s about what the game wants.
“I don’t think any football fan, any player, any manager watching that thinks it’s a red card. Everybody in the game is looking at that and thinking it’s not a red card, behave yourself.”
Former Man Utd defender Gary Neville disagreed and felt that Martinez should have known he held culpable for any kind of hair pull given the heightened level of scrutiny this season.
Speaking on the Gary Neville Podcast, he said: “It’s not the equivalent of spitting, but it goes into that type of category that it’s something that you just don’t do, that you know you get a red card for.
“It’s a bit soft. It’s a little bit like it’s a technical red card. It’s not a violent conduct, but it’s one of those things that as football players, you know you don’t pull someone’s hair.
“He was obviously going to get sent off the minute that it was spotted by VAR so it is what it is so they go without him now for three games.”
