Bruno Fernandes should be banned and stripped of the Manchester United captaincy following his antics during Manchester United's 7-0 defeat at Liverpool.
That's the view of pundit Chris Sutton after the Red Devils skipper came under fire for handling an assistant referee during an incident involving the pair and Trent Alexander-Arnold in the second half of the match.
As United's situation became ever more desperate against their old rivals, the Portuguese midfielder appeared to first feign an injury before trying to win a penalty and could routinely be seen throwing his arms in the air, even when Marcus Rashford was substituted. But it was when Fernandes grabbed a hold of match official Paul Adcock, following an altercation with Alexander-Arnold that annoyed former Chelsea striker Sutton the most and he was brutal in his assessment of the Manchester United star's afternoon.
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Writing in the Daily Mail, Sutton said: “The Incredible Sulk racked up quite the rap sheet at Anfield. There was nothing professional about this behaviour. It was more befitting a petulant child, and the push on the assistant should result in a ban, no ifs and buts.
“Paolo Di Canio got 11 games in 1998, remember, and I wouldn’t disagree if Fernandes received the same punishment. This was shameful, embarrassing, disgraceful, whatever word you can conjure up.
“Whatever you think of Harry Maguire, the club captain, you would not catch him behaving like this on the pitch. Ten Hag dealt with the Cristiano Ronaldo problem.
“Now he needs to deal with Fernandes, starting with deciding whether he deserves to wear the armband in Thursday’s Europa League clash with Real Betis. I don’t think he does. Liverpool were fantastic and United were foul, and nobody embodied their deplorable display more than Fernandes.”
United were left shell-shocked by the Reds' second half blitz as the confidence that has been seemingly lacking from Jurgen Klopp's side all season dramatically returned with interest.
United's players appeared to almost give up at times, such was the difficulty they found themselves in, but despite Sutton's scathing assessment of Fernandes' altercation with an assistant referee, former match official Dermot Gallagher took a rather different view.
Speaking on Sky Sports News about the incident, Gallagher said: "You don't want a player to be manhandling match officials, but I would suggest that the assistant actually manhandles Fernandes more than he did. I think once the official does it first, Fernandes is almost like fly-swatting 'get out of my way, I want to get on with it'.
"So while I don't condone it and I think the referee is in a difficult position, because if he goes across and makes an issue of it, Fernandes is likely to say 'well he grabbed hold of me first'. It is difficult but I think it just went away."
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