Absolutely wild thing to say when his entire body was off the ground diving at the ball

Oliver has blocked the run of play 3 times in one game. Might be the most damning statement of the quality of his reffing today.

The Hull loss wasn't the bad one. This one was.

Mbeuno has to score there.

Mbeumo doesn't even look up.

That's hilarious. Maguire gets thrown down and he calls the foul on him.

That's the result of Artetaball last year.

Good game fellas. I think we can all agree there was some questionable decisions in the match.

The referee/VAR is going to be the main talking point. Oliver was atrocious and it went well beyond his red card decision.

But the main issue is that United have played 5 games and frankly just haven't looked good for much of any of them beyond for about 30 minutes in the 2nd half against Ipswich and against perhaps the worst team to ever play in the CL group stage (and honestly, I don't think you can actually look good against a team like that if you have top 5 aspirations in the EPL).

Said it earlier but this version of United has a lot of the same criticism's of Carrick's Middlesborough teams. That's worrying.

Pro-Ref (new name for PGMOL): oopsie, our bad, sowwy:

Confirmed. Man City goal WAS a mistake. Pro Ref spokesperson said: “Following the incident in the 60th minute of Sunday's Premier League fixture between Manchester United and Manchester City at Old Trafford, we can provide clarification regarding Erling Haaland’s awarded goal.…

— Simon Stone (@sistoney67) September 13, 2026

Seems like the mistake they are admitting to is that VAR should have suggested an on-field review to see if the referee felt Enzo was interfering with the play.

Given how absolute dog crap he was, pretty sure Oliver would have said no and we'd be right where we are now.

Dre_00 said:

---

Seems like the mistake they are admitting to is that VAR should have suggested an on-field review to see if the referee felt Enzo was interfering with the play.

Given how absolute dog crap he was, pretty sure Oliver would have said no and we'd be right where we are now.

---

So everybody at home who watched the match was able to see that Fernandez impacted the play and the professional referee who gets paid wasn't able to come to the same conclusion?

What kind of clown opreation is the Premier League running?

After admitting they completely screwed up, the FA had now said they are putting top men onto the City financial cheating. Top men.

This was gallows humor by Dre, I believe. Michael Oliver is probably one of the most widely known officials. But… he's also been the ref of many controversial decisions, certainly more than you'd think from the ref that gets so many high profile matches.

I think he's a Newcastle fan, so they are unfairly not subject to his reign of error. Must be nice… although he wasn't the real problem today.

Dre_00 said:

---

Seems like the mistake they are admitting to is that VAR should have suggested an on-field review to see if the referee felt Enzo was interfering with the play.

Given how absolute dog crap he was, pretty sure Oliver would have said no and we'd be right where we are now.

---

It's (I think) something stronger. They are saying the VAR should have clearly determined that Enzo was in an OS position and interfering with play and brought Oliver to the monitor to show him that evidence. And they are saying the VAR didn't consider that action as a possible OS violation. Yes it's on Oliver to accept or decline that at the monitor but the evidence is pretty obvious.

The VAR screwed up. Bad.

I'll add that I think they screwed up on the RC too. They should have found a way to get Oliver to the monitor to judge Bruno's action. It's not Red. But once Oliver is there he can see the kick to the back and go Yellow. That's the (IMHO) correct card.

I thought yellow would have been the right color as well, but he did kick at Bruno and it did look like he made contact, although it looked like maybe not to the degree commensurate with the reaction. I mean, there was more there for me than in the '98 Beckham World Cup red card, to pick a famous example.

Upside to this start, it proved right away what I thought about this front office. If they don't care to push on as a winning club, I don't have to worry about setting my calendar around their matches.

I personally don't know if I agree with that sentiment. Even if we assume United could have landed, say, Elliot Anderson for 125m (not sure why he'd choose United over City unless they offered him insanely high wages)...isn't that exactly what got United into this mess? Forget about the Antony deals of the world. It's the Angel De Maria and Paul Pogba deals of United's history that were the problem. Massive outlays of transfer fees and wages, on legitimately good players mind you but for all intents and purposes hired assassins that were here to get paid, but weren't enough to make the club elite.

The team that played on Sunday isn't challenging Arsenal just by adding Anderson and (insert favorite elite, available forward/winger of your choice). No point in spending the money until the base you are starting from is already at a high level.

Now, I'm all here for the argument that the owners have completely hog-tied the front office by saddling the club with hundreds of millions in debt and effectively made it impossible for them to ever pay top fees and wages. But I don't pin that blame on transfer decision makers trying to extract every ounce of value they can out of every pound spent.

I don't know what to say about this; apparently JJ Gabriel was going to make his debut tomorrow night. But his family is upset about his number of minutes in pre-season friendlies? Friendlies? We talkin' 'bout friendlies?

Wants to leave club immediately…

JJ Gabriel asks to leave Manchester United. Letter of de-registration handed in. Club to deny request - he has contract to next summer. High-level talks ongoing.

But his clear intention is to go. Pre-season minutes a factor.

After @Matt_Law_DT ⬇️ #MUFChttps://t.co/wo3I6MfCD1

— Laurie Whitwell (@lauriewhitwell) September 15, 2026

You can't force someone to stay who doesn't want to stay. And if you manage to convince him, it's likely because you had to offer something that you were up to that point unwilling to do (and usually for a valid reason).

Point is it sucks but that's kind of where the club is at the moment. I'm sure buying two slightly older players who play in the same position as him didn't help. Hard to sell to a kid that he's the future in 2-3 years when you do that.

I consider the owners the front office. I'm not saying I won't be a fan anymore. I am just not getting emotionally invested in a club that keeps taking the piss out of us fans.

Listen… if this is over him not being included in the 25 man senior list… because he's too young for the young player list… for Champions League this year, that is crazy…

If JJ Gabriel had played for @ManUtd tomorrow night, he would have been the club's youngest ever player. But the same is also true in an 'easier' game against Sabah FK last week and for some reason he was not put on United's A list (too young for B list), which Arsenal did for…

— Simon Stone (@sistoney67) September 15, 2026

Ok you'll need to walk me through how this is connected to ownership or the front office. Unless you are just still venting.

Showstopper said:

---

Ok you'll need to walk me through how this is connected to ownership or the front office. Unless you are just still venting.

---

I'm not talking about the JJ situation. No idea what is going on there.

I was talking about the club overall. Was replying to Dre's earlier post. But it looks like I'm replying to his post directly above.

lol ok. I was like, "I'm as happy to pin stuff on the Glazers as the next guy, but I kind of doubt anyone in their family even knows he exists…"

Not great that our best academy player is demanding to leave BUT it's also indicative that him/his entourage might be an ongoing pain to deal with if he does stay. A 15 year old trying to hold United hostage over playing time had better end up being a world class player to justify this sort of nonsense

Apparently JJ Gabriel has followed Real Madrid and a ton of RM players. I gotta say, if you think getting minutes behind Sesko, Cunha, Rashford, and Bruno is tough, I wouldn't assume it would be easier behind Mbappe, Vini Jr., Jude Bellingham, Bernardo Silva, and Arda Guler to name a few (especially with "win now" Jose Mourinho as manager).

Yea...apparently his Dad is pushing this. Great way to derail your kids' career before it really gets started, especially if he was in fact going to be named on the bench for tomorrow's Carabao Cup match

He's freaking 15. How about he learn to play soccer before playing prima Donna. If he were that much of a phenomenon he would get PT. He's not getting the PT for a reason. Not the least of which is a 15 year old will get killed against grown men in English football.

Fair then. The owners do indeed suck.

I mean… he is really good at the youth level. But they were going to debut him against Brighton as a 15 year old. Literally tomorrow, and it wasn't enough. Twitter is saying the father is mad because Shea Lacey got minutes against Sabah.

Dre_00 said:

---

You can't force someone to stay who doesn't want to stay. And if you manage to convince him, it's likely because you had to offer something that you were up to that point unwilling to do (and usually for a valid reason).

Point is it sucks but that's kind of where the club is at the moment. I'm sure buying two slightly older players who play in the same position as him didn't help. Hard to sell to a kid that he's the future in 2-3 years when you do that.

---

No, clubs can and do absolutely force players to stay. Or I suppose with youth, you can't make them stay, but you can prevent them from being registered at a different academy which is nearly the same thing.

What clubs can't do is force players to leave without their consent.

Pardon my intrusion but it bothers me when football business is discussed and people don't understand these aspects (especially the latter).

But also - as an outsider, I'll add that it is bat-****-crazy if this kid's dad expects Man U to register a 15 year old for List A… and/or is butt hurt because a 19 year old on List B played while his son was left out. Sucks that your son is only 15. Get over yourselves and wait a year.

Sorry, let me rephrase...

Yes, you can force a player to stay at a club until the end of this contract.

Practically speaking, that doesn't happen often because the negatives of doing are so overwhelming. You may get away with it for a while but eventually, the player usually leaves before the contract ends and the club takes some sort of (usually under market value) compensation for doing so.

Ahh ok. That makes more sense.

I guess it depends on the situation… with the senior team, I can think of many cases where it makes sense to keep a guy, but there's plenty of others where it doesn't.

Part of what is piquing my interest in this is that I'm less familiar with academy business so I honestly don't know what makes sense here… I could think of potential arguments on both sides.

Lineup is all gas no breaks

Representing United this evening... 🥁🏆

— Manchester United (@ManUtd) September 16, 2026

Quality goal by Shae Lacey