Sean Dyche argued football’s lawmakers should consider expanding the reach of the video assistant referee system after Nottingham Forest conceded from a controversial corner for the second successive match. His side came close to winning, but Dyche was left angered after Manchester United scored the opener from a corner awarded by the assistant referee Akil Howson on the far side of the pitch. Replays showed it was unclear whether the Forest full-back Nicolò Savona kept the ball in play.
Dyche was booked for his protests in defeat last Sunday at Bournemouth, where Marcus Tavernier scored directly from a corner. Here, Casemiro headed in one taken by Bruno Fernandes to earn United a first-half lead.
Forest rallied, scoring twice in 102 second-half seconds, but Amad Diallo’s stunning volley ensured the post-match discourse was dominated by the award of a 33rd-minute corner. “I just can’t understand it, you’re an assistant referee and 70-odd yards away, you’ve got a goal and a net in the way, but apparently you can see,” Dyche said.
“I’ve got a better view and I’m not in the right position. That’s got to be wrong in the current climate. I’m a big fan of VAR. Someone has got to be able to overrule these decisions, just really quickly, [it would take] only five seconds.
“For me, that’s five seconds of VAR: ‘Bang, that’s it, done, wrong decision.’ It is really, really frustrating two weeks on the trot. With all the technology and all that’s at stake, particularly for us at Nottingham Forest after the start the club has had, that’s a big moment.
“We all want it right, every fan wants it right. The worst thing, I’m back in the game for three games and for two weeks on the trot I’m talking about refereeing decisions. I want to be talking about my team.”
The damage for Forest could have been even worse had Murillo, after Matthijs de Ligt kept alive another corner, not made a miraculous goalline intervention to prevent Diallo from snatching victory in the third of at least five minutes of second-half stoppage time. Diallo struggled at right-wingback, but Ruben Amorim praised his match-turning ability to contribute such a sweet strike, after Nikola Milenkovic headed a Fernandes corner to the edge of the area.
Diallo’s slack defending made him culpable for Morgan Gibbs-White’s headed equaliser from Ryan Yates’s cross, and he struggled defensively against Callum Hudson-Odoi. “I know Amad can do so much better, but I know Amad is so dangerous one v one,” Amorim said. “Sometimes we just accept that one player who is not having a great game can change the game for us.”
It was fitting for Forest, whose players complained to the referee, Darren England, after he blew for half-time, that Savona earned the lead, 39 seconds after United restarted the game. The boisterous Igor Jesus challenged for a high ball in the area, getting the better of three United black shirts, and then the ball broke.
Savona was hungrier than Diogo Dalot and the Italian controlled the ball with the studs of his left boot before prodding in. Benjamin Sesko put the ball back on the spot as Forest savoured the moment and it took a while for United to return to life.
Forest pushed for a third goal, Hudson-Odoi and Igor Jesus sending efforts wide, but United stayed alive and Diallo produced a stunning equaliser. Fernandes earlier hit a post with a clever effort from distance and it spoke volumes that Amorim admitted United would have lost this game last season, suggesting his team has discovered a valuable “big-team” mentality.
“In the past, if we had this kind of bad five minutes and suffered two goals, we didn’t recover,” he said. “Today it is a different feeling. You can sense that. We could not win this game but we were not going to lose … that is a feeling that a big team sometimes has to have.
“We had a big opportunity to win in the end and my feeling is we dropped two points here and should’ve done better.”
