Tottenham Hotspur only have themselves to blame for another poor showing, this time drawing 1-1 to Manchester United at Old Trafford after a couple of early, terrible misses from the usual suspect, striker Dominic Solanke, ended up biting them in the behind after a brilliant second half finish from United forward Bryan Mbeumo, who had rejected them and Thomas Frank a year earlier.
But the real boiling point of the match didn't come until around the 78th minute when one of the Premier League's most notorious instigators, left back Luke Shaw, hurled himself on the turf after Rodrigo Bentancur leaned his head into Shaw's, to do his best to sell a headbutt and a red card.
As he tends to do, Attwell gave into the pressure from the fans in the stadium and bought the call that Shaw was selling hook, line, and sinker. Nevermind that Shaw had shoved Bentancur to the turf after two perfectly normal sliding tackles that happen 20 times per game. Shaw instigated all of this and should have been red carded, as many fans pointed out on social media, and yet it was, once again, the Tottenham Hotspur player who was the victim.
Tottenham keep getting burned by the refs
Tottenham fans pointed out all season long in 2025/26 that they were being officiated differently, wondering if the Premier League was doing this to play up the storyline of them getting relegated. In an era with more sports betting and cyncism over manipulation of storylines for bet props and to manufacture fan interest, these conspiracy theories took off.
And while most of it seems like inane rambling from fans, events such as this one and poor officiating by the likes of Stuart Attwell do PGMOL and the Premier League itself no favors in terms of quelling these rumors.
Attwell has been the subject of a lot of controversies recently, including against Manchester United funnily enough. For two years, he wasn't allowed to officiate Nottingham Forest matches, and his officiating is so infamous that there are literal petitions from fans asking for him to be investigated.
The rot of the PGMOL seems to be with its most tenured officials, such as Attwell and Michael Oliver, who seem to have been quietly kept off refereeing games whlie his potential involvement in the Manchester City scandals is sorted out.
Tottenham were screwed over yet again by the Premier League officials, and it is baffling that Shaw got to walk away from what happened with only a yellow card while Bentancur got a red and Jan Paul van Hecke was also bizarrely booked.
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