For the first time ever, the FA used retrospective laws to ban a player.
This is a new law introduced this season. Its first culprit is Everton striker, Oumar Niasse. Niasse dived to win a penalty for his club to earn them a 2-2 draw against Crystal Palace. The FA has now banned him for two matches. That is all well and good, but it is useless to struggling Palace. That penalty cost them two valuable points.
If the FA actually wants to do it properly, they would have gone ahead to award the three points to Crystal Palace. As it is now, Crystal Palace are the losers in all of this.
First, with the player’s ban, Everton will not be able to use him in the next two games against Crystal Palace’s opponents and this will reduce their strength against those teams. If Everton lose them, that’s giving added advantage to Palace’s rivals.
In the long term, if Crystal Palace get relegated by finishing two points or even one point behind the last safe club the two lost points will become even more significant.
It will be more heart- breaking if by a twist of fate, the safe club, happened to be Everton!!!! The ref got this one wrong and it could be costly.
Premiership referees have been getting their decisions wrong for quite a while now, afterall they are human, but last weekend’s seems a bit too much.
Barely two minutes into the game against Manchester City, Leicester striker Jamie Vardy was through on goal only to be hacked down by City’s skipper, Vincent Kompany.
Under football rules that was a straight red card because Kompany frustrated a goal scoring opportunity. The referee put his hand into his pocket and brought out a yellow card. He decided against following the rules and sending Kompany off apparently because it was too early in the match and he didn’t want to spoil the game. Well, City went on to win the match 2-0. The result could have been different if only the ref had done his job properly without sentiments.
The North London derby is always full of drama but last Saturday’s was a bit subdued, well, that is if you are looking at it from a Spurs’ fan’s perspective.
The game was decided on two different beliefs. Spurs went into it believing it was their time to finally take over control of North London. Nothing wrong with being confident in your abilities but when it turns to arrogance and complacency, you have yourself to blame.
Arsenal, on the other hand, believed the young Turks of White Hart Lane were coming for a big battle. They feared they could be disgraced in front of their own fans if they didn’t up their game. Arsenal players came into the game battle-ready, unfortunately, their rivals were found wanting and the Gunners emerged deserved victors.
Having said that, Arsenal were helped by the referee on their way to victory. TV replays showed that Spurs defender, Sanchez cleanly dispossessed Arsenal’s Alexis Sanchez but the referee wrongly gave a free-kick against Spurs. The resulting free kick led to Arsenal’s first goal. To make matters worse, Shkodran Mustafi who headed the ball in was marginally offside. The referee missed that as well. It was a case of two wrongs making a right, especially if you are an Arsenal fan.
Manchester United defeated Newcastle United 4-1 but it could have been more if the referee had awarded the deserved penalty to United when Newcastle defender Clarke almost tore Lukaku’s shirt off his back in his bid to stop the powerful striker from inflicting more pain and causing more damage.
Referees usually get it right but on the occasions they get it wrong it is almost always very costly.
If the FA wants to use videos to punish players even after the games are over, they should go one step further and use same to reward clubs. Better still, they should use the videos to punish erring referees and their assistants.
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