Manchester United didn’t just lose a game 2-1 against Leeds United on Monday night, they lost control of it the moment Lisandro Martinez was sent off for something that simply does not meet the standard of a red card, writes Rant Sport’s Noah Ngcobo.
Let’s not pretend this is a grey area. The law is clear, hair pulling is only a red card if it is aggressive or forceful.
What we saw from Martinez was neither. It was clumsy, it was unnecessary, but it was not violent conduct.
Michael Carrick says what everyone is thinking
Michael Carrick did not hold back, calling it “one of the worst decisions I’ve seen”.
And that frustration is rooted in something deeper than just one moment, it is about consistency, or the complete lack of it.
Managers and players are constantly told to trust the process, to believe VAR will correct clear errors. But this was not a correction, it was an escalation.
The referee did not give a red in real time because, in real time, it did not look like one.
Only when slowed down and replayed from the perfect angle does it begin to resemble something worse.
Even Bruno Fernandes hinted at the farce, saying he would “be in trouble” if he spoke honestly about the decision.
When players feel censored by the consequences of telling the truth, it says everything about how broken the system feels.
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Slow motion has replaced common sense
This is where the real problem lies. VAR is supposed to bring clarity, but instead it is stripping moments of their natural context.
Football is a fast, physical game. Players grab, pull, and tussle constantly. Not every piece of contact is an act of aggression.
Martinez did not yank, he did not snap the head back, and there was no genuine force behind the contact.
Yet, in slow motion, even the slightest action can be made to look deliberate and malicious.
Former referee Mark Halsey questioned the decision outright, insisting it lacked the aggression required for violent conduct and suggesting VAR had overreached by turning a minor coming together into a sending off.
That view was echoed in the studio, where pundit Jamie Carragher made it clear this was not what fans expect to see punished with a red, pointing out how different the incident looks when watched at full speed rather than slowed down frame by frame.
And that is exactly where the problem lies.
If this is now the threshold for violent conduct, then the game has shifted into dangerous territory. Because you are no longer judging intent or impact, you are judging optics.
Slow motion exaggerates, freeze frames distort, and suddenly a fleeting, off balance action is reframed as something far more sinister.
This was not a red card. It was a moment stripped of context, over analysed, and ultimately over punished.
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