![\"Ernesto](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/0_GettyImages-2212957253.jpg\")
Athletic Bilbao boss Ernesto Valverde was not happy with the red card.(Image: Juanma – UEFA\/UEFA via Getty Images.)<\/p>\nAthletic Club were reduced to ten men in the first half of their 3-0 defeat to Man United in the Europa League on Thursday night.Athletic Bilbao boss Ernesto Valverde was not happy with the red card.(Image: Juanma – UEFA\/UEFA via Getty Images.)<\/p>\n
Athletic Bilbao head coach Ernesto Valverde has said the red card shown to defender Dani Vivian in the first half of his side’s 3-0 defeat to Manchester United<\/a> was too big a punishment.<\/p>\n The Spaniard was given his marching orders with less than ten minutes to go until half-time after pulling Rasmus Hojlund to the turf inside the box and giving away a penalty that led to Bruno Fernandes<\/a> firing United 2-0 ahead.<\/p>\n Referee Espen Eskas was advised to go to the pitchside monitor following a VAR review and he made the decision to point to the spot before brandishing a red card and dismissing Vivian.<\/p>\n The red card paved the way for United to take control of the game and put one foot in the Europa League<\/a> final ahead of next week’s semi-final second leg at Old Trafford<\/a>.<\/p>\n But in the opinion of Valverde, Eskas’ decision to send off the defender was “too much”.<\/p>\n “We protested a previous handball, which I think the referee awarded, the play continued and I thought the penalty was a clearer handball (from Alejandro Garnacho),” said Valverde.<\/p>\n “It was too much punishment \u2013 not only for the 0-2, but for playing without Vivian with 10 men.<\/p>\n “The foul on Sannadi was a foul (by Harry Maguire in the second half), but I don’t know if it should have been a red card or not.”<\/p>\n To Bilbao’s credit, they started the game the better and spurned a great chance to take the lead with just 11 minutes on the clock when Inaki Williams missed the target.<\/p>\n Valverde continued: “We didn’t manage the first goal, that tension. And the sending off and the penalty conditioned the game.<\/p>\n “We were good when it was 11 vs 11 and we had chances, but we didn’t score them. When they beat you 0-3 it means that they have been successful and we have not, in the chances we have had.<\/p>\n “These teams like Manchester United are unforgiving, they are very secure in the last stretch. We have to learn from this kind of thing.”<\/p>\n Looking ahead to next week’s second leg at Old Trafford, Valverde has vowed that his side will refuse to “give up” on dragging themselves back into the tie.<\/p>\n “It’s clear that we got a very bad result, but we have to play for the comeback. We are not going to give up on anything knowing that we have a very adverse result.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Athletic Club were reduced to ten men in the first half of their 3-0 defeat to Man United…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8813],"tags":[748,393,1811,4884,2465,423,11507,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-67925","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manchester","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-europa-league","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-manchester","13":"tag-manchester-united-fc","14":"tag-manchester-united-fixtures","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114437315551024733","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}