Angry Martinez accuses United of deliberately targeting McCarthy

Wigan 0 Manchester United 4

Manchester United and Wayne Rooney have been left hoping that Saturday's referee Mark Clattenburg does not change his mind about the striker's elbow to the head of Wigan's James McCarthy and submit a formal report to the Football Association.

If he does, a disciplinary panel could hardly let Rooney off as lightly as Clattenburg did at the time, merely awarding a free-kick and indicating that the incident was little more than a coming together of the two players.

It had been assumed that because the referee saw the clash, no further action could be taken. Yesterday, however, an FA spokesman admitted: "It's a bit of a grey area. He clearly gives a free-kick but he has the right to have a look [at the videotape]. We are waiting to see if a report comes in by midday on Monday. We do have the ability under the fast-track system to deal with it by Tuesday should that be deemed necessary."

If deemed guilty of serious foul play, Rooney would not suffer the hanging or "electrocution" that Sir Alex Ferguson said the press would want; instead, the punishment would be a three-match suspension and United would have to appeal in order for him to play in tomorrow's match at Chelsea.

Ferguson would have doubtless perceived Liverpudlian bias in the comments on Match of the Day by former Anfield heroes Mark Lawrenson and Alan Hansen, whose observation was: "He swings his elbow and whacks him in the head. You can't argue with the pictures."

Significantly, the normally mild-mannered Wigan manager Roberto Martinez was almost as forthright, accusing United of targeting McCarthy, officials of favouring them and Rooney of a "clear red-card offence".

He pointed out that Paul Scholes escaped any punishment for a "really nasty" challenge, also early in the game on McCarthy, adding: "I think it's quite clear that James McCarthy is a big, important player for ourselves and I felt that Manchester United tried to get on top of him and the referee, unfortunately from our point of view, did not protect James McCarthy well enough.

"When you're playing in any football game you know who are the key players of the opposition and I think when you've got that sort of experience you can try to get a reaction from a player, you can put him off. When you've got two different players affecting the same player it's quite clear that you're using your experience to do that."

"I think that's very clever play. It's just that you've got a referee out there who needs to protect players and unfortunately [on Saturday] we couldn't get that protection."

Whether Wigan could have avoided a 13th loss in 13 matches against United is hypothetical, a goal-difference of 16-0 in the last four meetings suggesting that playing with 10 men from the ninth minute might merely have reduced the margin of defeat.

Once the excellent Javier Hernandez justified his promotion ahead of Dimitar Berbatov with a well-taken opening goal, the home side always seemed likely to be caught on the counter, Hansen almost lapsing into self-parody in lamenting their defending.

If the first goal came from a beautifully constructed move, the second came from Edwin van der Sar's goal-kick, the third followed appeals for offside when Berbatov received the ball in his own half and the fourth went to an unmarked substitute left-back.

Admittedly, Rooney was involved in three of those goals, scoring the third himself from Berbatov's unselfish pass on a day that emphasised United's impressive options in attack, even with Michael Owen nowhere to be seen and Ryan Giggs in the stand for the third game running.

That clinical finishing was all the greater in contrast to Wigan's, the 20-year-olds Victor Moses and McCarthy allowing Van der Sar to thwart them in their team's period of early domination.

"I felt that we were the better side in the first half," Martinez said with justification. "They coped with that pressure really well and never lost composure, I think they showed very good experience, that's the sign of a good side. Any good player fits well in that team and they have a lot of competition."

Ferguson, although more satisfied than after last weekend's performance by his shadow squad against Crawley Town, had to admit that once more United had only played for one half. That is unlikely to prove sufficient against Chelsea and Liverpool in the next seven days.

Man of the match Van der Sar

Referee M Clattenburg (Durham)

Att 18,140.