Michael Carrick's Frustration Over Controversial VAR Decisions
Michael Carrick left the touchline with his jaw clenched and his patience shredded, his post-match debrief dominated not by tactics or missed chances, but by two decisions he believes ripped the game away from his side.
At the heart of his anger: a forearm into the back of Leny Yoro’s head in the build-up to Leeds’ opener, and the red card shown to Lisandro Martinez for a hair-pull on Dominic Calvert-Lewin after a VAR review.
Carrick did not hold back.
“We didn't start the game particularly well,” he told Sky Sports, acknowledging his team’s sluggish opening before quickly turning to the incident that lit the fuse. United conceded when Yoro went down under what he described as a “forearm smash in the back of the head” as Leeds broke through and scored the first goal.
The officials let it stand. VAR stayed silent. For Carrick, that call set the tone.
“They didn't decide to overturn that decision. That was a big moment in the game,” he said.
United never quite settled in that first half. The manager admitted they “didn't quite have the rhythm” and “didn't click,” flashes of promise drowned out by long spells where the performance never fully came together.
The game changed again after the break, but not in the way United wanted.
Carrick praised his players for the way they responded, describing a second half built on resilience and intent as they pushed to salvage something from the contest. Then came the flashpoint. Martinez, back in the side after a two‑month injury lay-off, found himself at the centre of a storm.
Challenging with Calvert-Lewin, the Argentine was adjudged to have pulled the forward’s hair. VAR stepped in, the referee went to the monitor, and the red card followed. Carrick was incandescent.
“Another shocking, shocking decision to send [Lisandro Martinez] off,” he said. “Two games in a row we've had decisions like that go against us but that one was one of the worst I've seen.”
For Carrick, the issue was not just the outcome, but the interpretation of the contact itself. He insisted Martinez’s actions were accidental, the result of being off balance after earlier contact, and nowhere near the level of aggression normally associated with a straight red.
He laid out his frustration with the sequence in forensic detail.
“You can elbow Leny Yoro for the first goal, leaning arm obviously, you can throw your arm in Martinez's face and then as he's off balance because of that, he's half grappling, he half touches the back of his hair which pulls the bobble to come out,” he said.
“I don't even know what it looks like. It's not a pull, it's not a tug, it's not aggressive. He touches it and he gets sent off.”
The sting, for Carrick, came from the fact that VAR did not simply back the on-field call but actively intervened to upgrade it.
“Worse of all, he gets sent to overturn it, a clear and obvious error. Shocking.”
Across two key moments, Carrick saw one elbow ignored and one fleeting touch punished with the harshest sanction. His team left with nothing. He left with a deepening sense that the decisions shaping their season are coming from the officials’ room, not the dressing room.
