Man United and VAR: Friends, Foes or Simply Flawed?

Despite conceding his side's lack of quality against relegation-fighting West Brom, Manchester United captain Harry Maguire still believed his team mates did enough to come away with the three points on Sunday. Talking to Sky Sports in the post-match interview, the United skipper decided to take aim at the referee for overturning a Red Devils penalty in the second half. Maguire, who had been on the receiving end of the supposed trip, told Sky: "Ever since people from other teams have spoken about us we've had nothing, absolutely nothing." It's safe to assume this was a dig at Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp, who had previously questioned the decisions Man United were getting in a post-match interview on the back of his side's 1-0 defeat to Southampton: “Man Utd had more penalties in two years than me in five and a half years.”

Referees favouring Man United is a narrative that rival fans certainly like to entertain. Usually, as soon as United receive a penalty decision, childish phrases such as "VARchester United" and "Bruno Penandes" can be seen trending on Twitter in typical social media fashion; so when the already-heavily-memed United captain thought he should have been given a penalty for a seemingly soft challenge he'd clearly gone down too easily from, social media users took to their respective platfroms to criticise him and the club.

On the one hand, this frustration is understandable as in 2019-20, Manchester United (14) were awarded more penalties than any other Premier League team and players like Martial and Fernandes have been accused of going down a little too easily in the box. However, In 2020-21 Man United (7) have only been awarded one more penalty than liverpool (6), while Leicester have been awarded the most (10). United have also, themselves, suffered from unfair VAR decisons, most notably in their recent 1-2 loss to last-placed Sheffield United which severely damaged their title hopes. A team delegate for Man Utd, who received the official match report from the referee after the game, revealed that The Blades' first goal should have been ruled out whilst an originally disallowed Martial goal should have stood, resulting in a reversal of the scoreline and three points unfairly taken from the Red Devils.

Despite all this, it's evident that United haven't been playing well enough to deserve topping the league when compared with cross-town rivals Manchester City. What can be drawn from these incidents though, is that the standard of refereeing in the world's most entertaining sports league needs to improve.