Louis van Gaal defends referee's decision to send off Angel di Maria

Louis van Gaal has revealed that he does not have any qualms with the referee for sending Angel di Maria off against Arsenal with a second yellow but has raised his apprehensions over the first yellow card that the Argentine received for simulation.

The Manchester United player received two yellow cards in the span of a minute, with the second card being shown for what seemed to be a tug on referee Michael Oliver. United were down to 10 men in the last 10 minutes of the game, which made the task all the more difficult after Arsenal had taken the lead through Danny Welbeck.

The referee booked two players for diving, including Adnan Januzaj, who fell into the Arsenal penalty box without the slightest touch from Nacho Monreal. Di Maria was also deemed guilty of simulation, as he fell over after a tug on the wrist by Aaron Ramsey.

"To see every decision of the referee in the circumstance, he whistles and so I want to see that on videotape how he has decided and in what way," Van Gaal said.

However, the Dutchman defended the referee's decision to send the Argentine off for the tug and insisted that it was wrong on the player's part to touch the referee on the pitch.

"Angel Di Maria knows that he doesn't have to touch the referee," the United manager added.

"So that is not so smart of him but to control emotion is not so easy in such a match. I have mentioned it also before the match because I know that these kind of matches a red card is easy.

"He knows that he doesn't have to touch the referee. He knows that. Every player knows that.

"In Spain he knows that he doesn't touch the referee, but that is also in his emotion. I've already spoken with him, he knows my opinion but also I have to see on the video.

"I think he's touched the referee and that's forbidden in every country, so he has no excuses," he concluded.