Ole Gunnar Solskjaer could not understand how Cristiano Ronaldo was denied a penalty in Manchester United's 2-1 win at West Ham.
Ronaldo demanded a penalty after he collided with the West Ham right-back Vladimir Coufal and the referee Martin Atkinson inexplicably refused to award a spotkick after Kurt Zouma took out Ronaldo in stoppage-time. Bizarrely, the Video Assistant Referee, Darren England, did not intervene to advise Atkinson to study a replay on the monitor.
Solskjaer felt Ronaldo should have received a penalty with United 1-0 up against Young Boys in Bern in midweek, when they eventually lost 2-1. West Ham were given a penalty via the VAR after the Zouma incident but David de Gea thwarted substitute Mark Noble well past the 90th minute.
"Nah, you can't think that," Solskjaer said. "But I think the first and the third are definite penalties, 100%, nailed on, cannot for the love of me understand why they're not given.
"The first one: he does the lad, he sticks out his foot, Cristiano runs where there was space a split second earlier and he runs onto the thigh of him. The third one: Zouma, I think it was, he doesn't touch the ball and Cristiano is fouled.
"Cristiano should have had two, the first and the third are definite penalties for me. And then luckily David saves that penalty at the end."
Atkinson has an infamous reputation concerning United matches he has officiated in and controversially failed to give Ronaldo a penalty in United's FA Cup quarter-final defeat at home to Portsmouth in 2008.
Sir Alex Ferguson described Atkinson's decision as 'absolutely ridiculous. I cannot explain it. Managers get sacked because of things like that and he's going to referee a game next week.'
Ferguson was charged by the Football Association in March 2011 when he remarked he 'feared the worst' that Atkinson had been appointed for United's 2-1 defeat at Chelsea.
In the same fixture the previous season, Atkinson decided against awarding Antonio Valencia a penalty and gave Chelsea a dubious free-kick that was converted by John Terry for the game's only goal.
