“Everyone hates it…” Manchester United legend slams FA Cup inconsistency vs Coventry

Manchester United legend Sammy Mcllroy has voiced his disdain at the decisions made by VAR in the FA Cup semi-finals over this weekend.

Mcllroy, who won the FA Cup with United back in 1977 discussed the two incidents of handball that VAR looked at across the weekend’s fixtures.

During the other FA Cup semi-final between Manchester City and Chelsea, Jack Grealish appeared to strike the ball with his hand in the box, yet VAR decided against ruling that an offence had occurred.

In Manchester United’s contest against Coventry, a similar event occurred, yet with that incident Aaron Wan-Bissaka was punished with a penalty ruled in Coventry’s favour in the final moments of stoppage time.

Coventry would go on to score that penalty, sealing an impressive comeback from a three-goal deficit, forcing Erik ten Hag’s side into extra-time and ultimately a penalty shootout.

Speaking on MUTV’s matchday review following the Coventry match, Mcllroy stated that the inconsistency shown by VAR across the two handball incidents is “killing everyone.”

“We saw it yesterday with [Jack] Grealish,” Sammy McIlroy stated. “Grealish is jumping, his arm comes out, it hits his arm, [Mauricio] Pochettino is screaming for a penalty. It could have been given but it wasn’t.

“Aaron [Wan-Bissaka] is running back towards his goal, the boy heads it back and it hits his arm and he gets it. It’s just this inconsistency with VAR at the moment which is killing everyone and making everyone hate it with the decisions that it’s making.

“But, this is what it is. They get back into it after that, score the penalty and it looks as if we are going to be out.”

Manchester United have made a habit of conceeding penalties throughout Ten Hag’s second season at the club.

In the Premier League, United have conceded six penalties, the joint third most, with only Everton and West Ham giving away more.

The Champions League was a similar story, with the Red Devils having a penalty awarded against them in each of their first four games in the competition.

It is only in the domestic cups that United had avoided being on the receiving end of a spot kick, with Haji Wright’s 95th-minute penalty the first the Reds have conceded in the FA Cup so far this season.