Manchester United found themselves disappointed with a 1-1 stalemate against Bournemouth at Old Trafford but the score certainly wasn’t the main talking point.
Heading into the tie United found themselves chasing the Champions League qualification places in the top 4 of the Premier League. Meanwhile, Bournemouth would have been hoping to distance themselves from the relegation zone as they sit only a matter of a few points above the top three and as we approach the back end of the season, every point matters. Both sides fielded fairly predictable starting elevens but United found themselves statistically firm favorites. On a run of form consisting of 16 unbeaten Premier League games, stretching back to a defeat back in October at the hands of Chelsea. The Red Devils also had history on their side against Bournemouth as they had previously won all of the 5 home games against the side from the south coast.
From the start of the game it was Manchester United in charge of the game as could have been expected and so in the 23rd minute they made the breakthrough. Antonio Valencia took a strike from range which Marcos Rojo was able to redirect past Artur Boruc and into the Bournemouth net to make the game 1-0 to United.
It was the 37rd minute where things started hotting up away from footballing performances. The beginning of the Ibrahimovic – Mings duels began, as Ibra was seen tumbling Mings to the ground off the ball. Given that the incident was off the ball you’d expect some sort of punishment but Zlatan managed to get away with just a talking to which was probably very lucky for him. The drama continued soon after when in the 40th minute a poor challenge from Phil Jones lead to Bournemouth’s Pugh going down in the box and resulting in a penalty. Norwegian Joshua King made no mistake from the penalty spot to tie the game for 1.
But the real talking points came from incidents that occurred very late on in the first half. Continuing the in game rivalry between Zlatan and Mings, the latter could be seen what appeared to be intentionally stamping on Ibra’s head after the Swede took a perfectly innocent tumble when colliding with another player. Often things like stamps are exaggerated but this really was an ugly incident that somehow went unnoticed by referee Kevin Friend. Fair play to Zlatan for not initially overreacting to the initial stamp which to be honest would have caused most players to throw a tantrum and probably provoking a small brawl. But whether Ibra retaliates only a minute later is up for debate. United earned a corner and it was clear that Mings and Zlatan were still at each other’s throats as they continued to talk during the build up to the corner. The corner headed towards the Swedish giant but during his jump his elbow swung suspiciously wide from his body and made a pretty brutal connection with Mings’ head. Although actions like this have no place in soccer it’s probably what Mings deserved following the awful, awful head stamp incident.
The most bizarre twist in the tale however is that neither Mings or Ibrahimovic received cards for the antics. But instead Bournemouth player Surman found himself sent off as he picked up a second bookable offence for his protests to the referee. Absolute madness.
In the second half Ibra continued his disappointing display as he missed a penalty but other than this the tempo of the game fizzled out. Surely following the game the FA have got to give both Zlatan and Mings fairly sizeable bans but we’ll just have to wait and see.
Overall a fairly brutal and disgusting Premier League match as far as discipline is concerned but who doesn’t love some drama from time to time?
