Fulham boss Parker: VAR should have ruled out Manchester United’s goal

Scott Parker was proud of his Fulham team after their 1-1 draw against Manchester United but branded the decision not to rule out United’s opener as “unacceptable”.

Joe Bryan’s second-half header cancelled out Edinson Cavani’s controversial opener at Old Trafford.

“The performance I got from the players was nothing short of incredible,” said Parker.

“I understand the disappointment of this season with us being relegated. There’s been fine margins and we have been on the wrong side of them. Performances have always been there and the challenge today was I wanted them to be brave at a stadium like this and against a calibre of team we are playing against, we did that.

“We played like a top team and we deserved to make it 1-1. We had some big chances at 1-0. Overall I’m very proud of the team because tonight and the rest of this season after last week’s relegation was about pride.

“We were on the right side of things today and that’s football. We’ve been unlucky at times this season. We defended well and then in attack we’ve put a lovely ball into the box and we’ve managed to finish it.

“At the time, I thought there goal would get ruled out [for offside]. I was speaking to the fourth official at the time and he said the linesman said he is offside by five yards if Fernandes hasn’t touched the ball. At that point, when they gave the goal, I thought he must have touched it. I can accept human error, if we didn’t have VAR this season I can understand the referee not knowing whether he’s touched it and through that mistakes are made. But what I can’t accept is that someone sitting in a studio who can see every angle possible can’t see it.

“I’ve looked at two or three times and he hasn’t touched it. That’s what unacceptable. We brought VAR into the game to get decisions right and if that takes 10 minutes to decide, the most important thing is they get it right and don’t worry about time because we’ve been on the end of a wrong decision there.

“Joe Bryan deserves his goal today. Him and Tim Ream are players this year that have no doubt been frustrated, disappointed but for all they’re disappointment they’ve always reacted in the right way. They come in every day and are true professionals, they always look to get better. I have nothing but admiration for both of them, they came into the team today and were superb and I commend them for that.”