In one of the most hilarious, awkward and honestly embarrassing interviews in some time, Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solksjær blamed the official Chelsea website because they influenced the referees not to award all the penalties for United, after the bumpy pointless draw last night at Stamford Bridge between the two sides.
You really have to appreciate this completely. No, it’s not part of a comedy sketch show, I assure you. This is real life.
“It’s all these outside influences, it’s brutal when they post it on their website, that affects the referees. You can read it.”
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer expresses his frustrations about the punishment that was not given pic.twitter.com/7YK22ja6Oo
– Football Daily (@footballdaily) 28 February 2021
To be clear, Ole’s theory is that referee Stuart Attwell read a paragraph on Chelsea’s official website (which of course must be required of all referees in the league) about Harry Maguire dealing with errors against César Azpilicueta and Michy Batshuayi got away with it in recent meetings, which is why he chose not to award a boundary penalty against Chelsea. This is the 22nd paragraph in this story. Solksjær also mentions Frank Lampard, because we are clear about that.
(Should rather call the club historian Rick “Master of Referees” Glanvill!)
The incident took place in the 15th minute when Callum Hudson-Odoi and Mason Greenwood were fighting over an awkward ball in the Chelsea area, and the Chelsea man apparently handled the ball. The referee did not award the penalty at first, but VAR called him to the monitor on the field. The repetitions were largely unconvincing, with some angles dealing with Greenwood first, some angles dealing with Hudson-Odoi first, and some angles actually pushing Greenwood’s arm into Hudson – Odoi’s hand in the ball.
What it certainly was not was a clear mistake or a definitive punishment.
Ole’s conspiracy theory – please note, only Leicester City have received more penalties than United so far this season! – was further fueled by a bit of hearsay, in which the referee apparently told Maguire (again him!) that he could not award the sentence because it would be ‘too controversial’! Well, he definitely avoided it!
Since then, Manchester United have started rowing back by claiming things were ‘wrongly heard’. The fans must have been too hard.
I’m not a big fan of the FA fining people, but it definitely feels justified in this case. If it does not bring the game into disrepute, I do not know what it is.
On the plus side: we all had a good laugh, finally discovered a great use for The 5th Stand App (or should we say The 12th Man App), and even got this excellent tweet from the social media team.
* chef *