BensGrandad
New member
OK, my thoughts.
For me, not violent conduct. The key for me is where he is looking as the Brighton defender goes towards him. His eyes are following the flight of the ball all the time. That takes 'violent conduct' out of the equation IMHO. If he has had a look to see where the defender is, it looks a lot more suspicious.
So no red card on that count.
Next question. He has led with the elbow. Not clever.
Was it careless? Most definitely. Was it reckless? Very probably. Was it using excessive force? Not for me. (Those are the definitions of 'severity' as laid down in the Laws of the game and carry a sanction of no action, caution, straight red respectively.)
So IMO, a yellow was right.
That said, he should have walked anyway as I felt the Ankergren incident was worthy of a caution and he got away with it.
Just my opinion, everyone else is of course entitled to theirs.
If, as you said earlier, you are a ref that statement just emphasises the facts as to why the standard of reffing is so bad and getting worse.