Manchester United head coach Michael Carrick launched a fierce attack on referee Stuart Attwell after a chaotic 2-2 draw at Bournemouth, accusing the officials of applying the laws inconsistently and leaving his side “baffled” by two key penalty decisions.

United went ahead just after the hour when Bruno Fernandes converted from the spot. Álex Jiménez was penalised for grabbing Matheus Cunha’s shirt in the area, a decision confirmed after a VAR check and one Carrick felt set a clear standard for the rest of the match.

That standard, he argued, was abandoned minutes later. Amad Diallo burst into the box and went down under a challenge from Adrien Truffert, only for Attwell and VAR to rule that the contact was not enough for a foul. United’s appeals were waved away and, almost immediately, Bournemouth broke upfield and equalised through Ryan Christie, swinging the momentum of the game.

United regained the lead when James Hill inadvertently headed a Fernandes corner into his own net, but the visitors’ night unravelled when Harry Maguire was adjudged to have pushed Evanilson in the box. The defender was sent off and Bournemouth levelled from the spot, leaving Carrick furious at what he saw as a double standard.

Carrick insisted the Cunha and Diallo incidents were “almost identical” and that Attwell “has definitely got one of them wrong.” He argued that if a two-handed grab on Cunha was enough for a penalty, the same logic had to apply to Diallo.

“It will be interesting to see which one they acknowledge is wrong,” Carrick said, calling the failure to award the second spot kick “astonishing” and a “huge moment” that changed the course of the match.

Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola dismissed the Diallo incident as “never a penalty,” but United captain Bruno Fernandes backed his coach, claiming smaller players are disadvantaged by referees’ perceptions of physical contact.

Fernandes questioned why VAR did not intervene on the Diallo challenge or the Maguire incident, arguing that either both were penalties or neither should have been given. He said Diallo was clearly knocked off balance as he prepared to shoot and described the situation as “frustrating for the small players.”

The draw keeps United in third place, still locked in a tight battle for Champions League qualification and now nursing a fresh sense of grievance over officiating in a season already defined by fine margins.