Lisandro Martinez will miss Manchester United’s clash at Chelsea on Saturday night as he starts a three-match ban – although head coach Michael Carrick declined to say if the club have appealed against his red card against Leeds on Monday night.
Martinez was sent off for violent conduct after VAR official John Brooks spotted the United defender pulling the ponytail of Leeds striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin and advised referee Paul Tierney to go to the monitor at Old Trafford.
It was thought that United intended to appeal the decision to send off Martinez on his comeback after two months out. However, the FA’s policy is only to confirm an appeal if it is successful, and Carrick wouldn’t give a definitive answer either.
‘I think we were obviously disappointed,’ said the United head coach. ‘We didn’t agree with it. I think it was pretty obvious how I felt after the game, and I still feel that way.
‘I don’t want to go into it now. I think it is what it is. We’ve been hit with some decisions and at the end of the day now we’ve just got to accept it and move on, whether we like them or not.’
United’s anger has been compounded by the fact that Harry Maguire received an additional one-match ban for misconduct towards the fourth official after he was sent off in a 2-2 draw at Bournemouth, and the PGMOL backed the decision not to award United a penalty for a challenge on Amad Diallo in the same game.
‘We’re massively disappointed, of course,’ said Carrick. ‘I think we had a few reasons to be disappointed in a big way over these type of situations over the last couple of weeks, or three weeks, but obviously now we’ve got to move on.
‘The decisions that have been made are something that we’re really disappointed with in many ways, but that’s it now. We’ve got to move on and we will do.’
The absence of Martinez and Maguire at Chelsea means Carrick will probably have to play a young centre-back partnership of Leny Yoro and Ayden Heaven in a match that could have a major bearing on United’s hopes of Champions League qualification. They are currently in third place, seven points above Chelsea in sixth.
‘I think they’re both in a really good place at the moment,’ added Carrick. ‘You’ve got to be careful what you try and predict, but certainly we’d like to have both of them. The experience and the stage that they’re at now, they’re at a really good stage.
‘The future is the future, and they need to keep progressing and we’ll give them the opportunity to do that, whether that’s the training on the pitch and the coaching side and the help and the advice, and certainly the game time as well.
‘I think Ayden is in a good place. I know he’s in a good place. He’s obviously still young and he’s progressing through the early stage of his career really, so I think it’s pretty natural for him to play some games and maybe not some others.
‘He’s training really well, he’s learning, he’s listening, he wants to improve. So I think it’s pretty natural as a centre-half of his age. He’s probably well ahead of schedule in terms of the games that he’s played. He’s trained well, I’ve got no worries, he went away and played with England a couple of weeks ago and done well.’
United will make a late fitness call on Kobbie Mainoo who missed the Leeds defeat with a minor knock. ‘He’s done a little bit so there’s a decision to be made there,’ said Carrick.
‘It’s an important game. We’re in a good position in the league and we want to keep building on that. It’s a tough place to go, and always has been. We’ve always had tough games down there.
‘Most of the time they’ve been good games in terms of what it brings, the feeling of a real proper game. We’ll be ready for that, we’ve prepared well.
‘As I said, we take the confidence from what we’ve built. We didn’t get the result we wanted against Leeds on Monday, but certainly the way they finished the game and the character we showed, we’ve got to take that into this game with an extra player and make the most of it.’
