It was a red. His spikes were up and obviously they landed on the face. The crazy thing is how the ref got it right in real time. It didn't look like a red when I first saw it. He also seemed to change his mind mid pull of the card. He had his hand in one pocket than went to the other. Like Klopp said, unlucky for sure. Especially when you see the Yellows handed out afterwards this weekend. But by the letter of the law it was just. I do hope they go with a one game ban when they review other calls this weekend and that you can clearly see in review it was an accident
The "letter of the law" still leaves so much open for interpretation.
"A tackle or challenge that endangers the safety of an opponent or uses excessive force or brutality must be sanctioned as serious foul play."
How do you define "endangering the safety of an opponent?" Had Otamendi's chop on Salah caught him a bit different, he could have easily been injured. Could/should that have been a red?
How do you define "excessive force?" In pretty sure I could pull up over 100 "fair challenges" from Mascherano's days in a red top that you could easily question if he used excessive force. F**k, he probably had one or more in each game he played for us. The "letter of the law" allows a red to say, "that was excessive" even if a player wins the ball. Surely we dont want that....
There are some challenges which have been clarified as straight red cards: intentional elbows to the head/face; dangling exposed studs on the end of a 50/50 allowing the other player to break his foot/leg on the bottom of your boot; two footed slides; a slide from behind; etc. However, there never seems to have been real clarification on the high boot scenario, which is why we got such vastly different outcomes from the 3 incidents this weekend.....
F**k the letter of the law. Judgement and common sense are what's needed 😎
« Last Edit: Sep 12, 2017 02:07:04 am by harrydunn08 »
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