Maguire VAR farce sees Paddy take a £500,000 hit on Chelsea v United

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer once again got the better of Frank Lampard and his Chelsea boys last night – with a little help from the VAR crew in Stockley Park – and Paddy Power’s price-savvy punters saw the benefits.

United ran out 2-0 winners at the Bridge, adding to their 4-0 season-opening victory at Old Trafford and their 2-1 League Cup triumph in London back in October.

I reckon Ole would play Frank’s lot every week if he could.

REFUND: After Man Utd got a favour from #VAR last night, we're helping out anyone who backed Chelsea.

We've refunded (as a free bet) on:

✔️All pre-match single bets on Chelsea to beat Man Utd.

✔️All pre-match single bets on the draw. pic.twitter.com/MCPyelrF8f

— Paddy Power (@paddypower) February 18, 2020

He’d certainly take the generosity of VAR officials who saw Harry Maguire “straightening his leg” to “help” Michy Batshuayi stay on his feet every week. The United squad will need to practice keeping a straight face in post-match interviews if VAR won’t make calls like that against them.

Not only did VAR fail to deliver the merited dismissal for England’s hero Harry M, it also chalked out TWO Chelsea goals, one for a minor bit of argy-bargy from a corner and one for a very squeaky offside call.

The failure to force Maguire off along with the brutal cutting short of Blues celebrations by video evidence just wasn’t right, so, while we still paid out on United winning the game, we refunded all bets on Chelsea and the draw – meaning £100,000 was turned back over to bettors after the game.

But Harry’s VAR escape wasn’t finished doing damage there. He scored the second goal for United, which caused carnage across our markets to the tune of more than £400,000!

Somehow, I  don’t think anyone will be quite as upset about that!

See, we thought it was a great idea to let our bettors dream up their own bets on the #WhatOddsPaddy hashtag and they came up with some absolute corkers.

The biggest hit came on on a 90/1 shot that we did not see coming – Man Utd 1+ Goals in Each Half; Man Utd 3+ Corners in Each Half & Chelsea 1+ Cards in Each Half. With Willian collecting a card in the first-half before Rudiger, Pedro and Zouma all collected cautions in the second, and United earning eight corners in the game, this long-shot hinged on United delivering a second goal after the break once Anthony Martial had glanced in an opener on 45 minutes.

Slabhead Hazza put his bonce to better use than concocting ridiculous excuses on 66 minutes and headed home a powerful second. This effort with his considerable cranium also forced us to payout over £275,000 on this single #WhatOddsPaddy line alone.

That’s over a quarter of a million quid my friend. On just one market. And there was worse to come, at least in terms of odds.

Man Utd to Score in Both Halves & Man Utd 4+ Corners Each Half clicked in the second half too thanks in part to Maguire’s contribution – honestly, ref, cards aren’t just for Christmas, yeah? – bringing in a tidy profit for some savvy punters who took up the 150/1 #WhatOddsPaddy offering. Over £75,000 was paid up thanks to wagers on that, I need to lie down.

The rest of our  #WhatOddsPaddy offers accounted for over £50,000 worth of winning bets, with 66/1 and 40/1 shots landing thanks to United’s goals and their four corners in each half, bringing the total winnings up to over £400,000 on #WhatOddsPaddy punts alone.

Added to the Justice Refund, that’s a cool half a million hit on these markets alone.

Think it’s beans on toast for dinner tonight lads.