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Former Premier League ref claims Manchester United star was lucky to avoid red card at Villa Park

Former Premier League referee Dermot Gallagher disagrees with Rob Jones’ decision not to show Marcus Rashford a second yellow for a challenge on Aston Villa’s Leon Bailey.

Most decisions in Sunday’s scoreless draw against Aston Villa went against United, but there was one incident where we counted ourselves lucky.

That was when Rashford caught Bailey in a duel out wide.

Rashford saved by Dalot

Speaking on Sky Sports’ Ref Watch segment, Gallagher stated that he liked the referee’s idea of talking to the forward, but did allude to the fact that Dalot was there to mop up as the last man back. Otherwise, Rashford would have been sent for an early shower.

He said: “I think like last week, what saves him is [Diogo] Dalot. If he does get sent off, I don’t think he can argue too much but Dalot comes and sweeps the ball up.

“It’s not a breaking or promising attack. If he’s not going to send him off, I do like what he did – I said last week about [Ipswich Town’s Sam] Morsy, he’s teed him up and the referee has called him and Bruno Fernandes over and said ‘look, the next one he goes’. I think that’s a good policy.

“If he decides it’s not enough to send him off, what he’s done is he’s made it clear that the next one, he’s going. He gets a little bit lucky because the ball was running out. You clearly see he dangles a leg – is it a yellow card? Quite possibly, but Dalot was so close.

“We saw it last week with Thomas Partey, and it’s the policy they’ve adopted.”

Week after week we witness wrong calls, but most of the time it is against us.

I’ll take it when it goes our way because we didn’t receive any compensation when Bruno Fernandes was wrongly dismissed against Tottenham.

The last thing United need now is getting more players suspended through suspension. Fernandes may have had his red card against Spurs overturned, but he misses United’s next Europa League match after receiving two yellow cards in the 3-3 draw versus FC Porto.

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