Aston Villa star Leon Bailey slammed referee Anthony Taylor and VAR for failing to punish Lisandro Martinez, claiming the Manchester United defender elbowed him twice.
In the latter stages of Villa's shock 3-1 victory over United on Sunday, Martinez brutally went in on the Jamaican winger as the two jostled for the ball, leaving Bailey 'unable to breathe'. The 25-year-old has taken to social media to vent his fury, having scored Villa's opening goal to help mark new manager Unai Emery 's first game with an epic win.
"Very disappointed in the referees today, I couldn't breathe for a second after getting elbowed twice in my rib," Bailey fumed on Twitter. "The linesman went on to say I shouldn't be saying anything because I was doing just the same thing to Martinez. Sometimes I don't understand why we got VAR. SMH."
The FA could take retrospective action on Martinez, who's currently eligible to face Villa again when the two teams clash at Old Trafford this Thursday in the League Cup. The Argentina international will then be hoping to feature in the Premier League one final time before the World Cup, as United travel to face Fulham on Sunday.
It would make the wretched defeat sting even more for Martinez, whose side found themselves 3-1 down after just 11 minutes at Villa Park. Bailey broke the deadlock in the seventh minute thanks to good build-up play from firstly Ollie Watkins and then Jacob Ramsey, who slipped the former Bayer Leverkusen ace through on goal with a well-timed pass.
Have your say! Should Martinez have been sent off? Join the debate in the comments section.
Fending off the scrambling Martinez, Bailey slotted past David De Gea in front of the Holte End. It was soon 2-0, as Lucas Digne fired in a delightful free-kick to stun Erik ten Hag 's men, who'd been on a solid run of three successive victories and clean sheets.
The Red Devils still hoped to continue their winning run when Luke Shaw 's speculative long-range strike deflected off Jacob Ramsey in added time of the first half. But Ramsey made amends only four minutes after the restart, emphatically finishing a counter attack which proved to be the killer blow.
United then lost their heads, failing to conjure up a decent goalscoring opportunity and finding themselves embroiled in a series scuffles. As well as Martinez and Bailey's skirmish, Cristiano Ronaldo went head-to-head with Tyrone Mings in a WWE -like tussle.
Ten Hag was dismayed with his team's performance, admitting post-match: "We lost the game at the start of the first half, start of the second half. That's not acceptable. You have to be ready for the game, we were not. We have to be more sharp.
"I said it was up to us. It was up to us. We didn’t keep the ball. We let them run at the start of the game, we didn’t get the right organisation but especially we didn’t follow the rules in defending and we lost battles. It's not acceptable.
"A player has to take responsibility to be ready. It looked like they were fresher and that's never acceptable."
