MANCHESTER UNITED legend Peter Schmeichel blasted “stupid” Bruno Fernandes for needlessly giving away a penalty against Barcelona.
The Red Devils went into the second leg of tonight’s crunch Europa League play-off with the scores tied 2-2 following the draw at the Nou Camp seven days ago.
But they found themselves trailing after just 18 minutes after Robert Lewandowski’s penalty.
Barcelona star Alejandro Balde turned in the box after a cross was half-cleared, but despite facing away from goal, Fernandes dragged him to the floor.
Even though there were strong appeals, VAR went with the referee’s original decision and the Pole made no mistake from 12 yards – despite David de Gea getting a strong hand to it.
And the actions of Fernandes left Schmeichel, who was United goalkeeper in the 1999 Treble winning campaign, raging.
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He told BBC Radio 5 Live: “It is so stupid to pull a man down inside the penalty area in a situation where Alejandro Balde is going away from goal.
“That’s so stupid, I can’t tell you how stupid that is.
“To pull a man down so blatantly in the area in a situation where Balde is actually going away from goal. That is just stupid.
“It doesn’t matter how much the contact is, what he’s done is taken Balde out, they’ve got no case.
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“It’s just silly, it’s unnecessary. He’s going nowhere, just let him go.”
After the goal, Schmeichel then declared that Portuguese international Fernandes now owed his team-mates.
He added: “David de Gea gets a full hand to it but only manages to put it off the post and it still goes in.
“We are talking about big games, the one thing you have to eradicate is mistakes.
“Bruno Fernandes is still arguing, he needs to get a grip of himself, he has played a couple of sloppy passes. Now he has given away the penalty and he owes the team.”
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
