Manchester United have beaten West Ham in a game screened live on Sky, but as is often the case in the games he is in charge of, referee Mike Dean was the star of the show.
He gave a straight red card to West Ham's Soufiane Feghouli after just fifteen minutes, the quickest sending off of the season. It was exceptionally harsh: it barely looked a foul. Later on, Dean missed a clear red card following a hideous Kouyate tackle on Mkhitaryan, and Zlatan's second goal was clearly offside - although that is more the fault of his linesman.
Niall Quinn did not pull his punches at half-time when calling Dean's first-half performance:
He got it disgracefully wrong, in my opinion.
This fella does it time and time again, I mean I try very hard doing this job to understand how difficult it is for referees and not just jump on the bandwagon, but time and time again I look at this guy and his arrogance alone in wanting to be the man, and I suppose, running the show and looking the part and it puts me off.
I'm delighted to make an exception in this case and call him for this, this is rank bad refereeing.
This comes just a day after Stephen Hunt called Dean "probably the most arrogant man I've ever met on a football pitch". A belief in Dean's arrogance is not restricted to former Irish internationals: Nigel Pearson called Dean "arrogant" after his Leicester City side lost 4-3 to Spurs, a game in which Dean awarded Spurs a contentious penalty.
That arrogance would seem to be backed up by this clip that was dug up during the game, as he tells Kouyate "Don't look at me again, otherwise you won't be playing again".
Odd, that. Although Dean has had a long, long litany of bizarre video clips to his name.
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