Manchester United were incredibly fortunate to win a penalty against Aston Villa on Thursday night.
The Red Devils eventually emerged as comfortable 3-1 victors at Villa Park, but they were playing second fiddle during the early exchanges until Bruno Fernandes won the controversial spot kick.
United's stellar January signing went to ground after trying to get past Ezri Konsa with a piece of skill, prompting referee Jon Moss to award a penalty that VAR failed to overturn.
Man Utd's controversial penalty
Fernandes himself converted from 12 yards by sending Pepe Reina the wrong way and effectively inspired United to victory with further goals from Mason Greenwood and Paul Pogba.
Fans on social media were pretty unanimous that it was the wrong call and United legend Peter Schmeichel even went out of his way to tweet that 'VAR continues to be a joke'.
In fact, Match of the Day even learnt from a former referee working for the Premier League that penalty decisions were incorrectly handled in all three of competition's Thursday night games.
Premier League penalty record broken
In other words, United should never have been given the penalty and rival fans were feeling particularly aggrieved because, well, the Reds Devils keep being given spot kicks.
It seems a pretty cliche thing to say about United, but the stats don't lie and the 13 penalties they've received in 2019/20 is the most any team has ever been given in a single Premier League season.
Thirteen penalties in 34 games is pretty mind-blowing and some supporters believe that Fernandes' antics in Birmingham aren't the first time United have unfairly benefited at the hands of VAR.
A video of every penalty United have been awarded this season went viral very recently, but an updated Twitter thread has driven the knife even deeper into the Old Trafford side this week.
Twitter thread of Man Utd penalties
Twitter user @LfcOkx has accumulated 1,900 retweets and 5,200 'likes' at the time of writing for a series of video effectively accusing various United players of diving for penalties.
Nobody is safe from Scott McTominay to Paul Pogba, so check out the clips down below as well as a concluding compilation of - you guessed it - the penalties United have been given:
In the words of the tweeter: "Lastly, 50/50 is no longer a thing I'm afraid. Once there's contact, it's a penalty. At least for these guys #penaltyfc."
GIVEMESPORT's Kobe Tong says
I'm not going to lie, United have been very, very lucky.
It's a little harsh to single them out as somehow fiddling spot kicks, particularly in terms of yesterday seeing as the league also admitted mistakes in Bournemouth vs Tottenham and Everton vs Southampton.
And you could even argue that United's unwanted Premier League record could be ignored because why wouldn't precedent be broken in the first season with VAR?
But the stat that stands out for me is having United have won 25 penalties in the last two league seasons, which is a staggering 11 more than the three teams in second place.
Yes, that does mean United came close to the record last season, too, with 12 spot kicks and that makes for a worryingly anomalous trend that suggests something is array.
Simply put, it would be impossible to tell whether that's down to unconscious bias, the behaviour of United players or poor coincidence, but we can all agree that it sticks out like a sore thumb.
