Bold Seagull
strong and stable with me, or...
As someone who sits on the front row in the SWC, I can tell you most definitely that Dunk's push was sufficient to floor most people. The push was both sudden and with significant force to his chest (nowhere near and never going to be near his face) and Jota, although a low life, cheating tw*t was not play acting when he fell, he was genuinely surprised at Dunk's reaction.
Dunk was played like a fool and shouldn't have reacted the way he did. That yellow was 100% justified.
Dunk was a fool. Not arguing that point.
But Jota was looking at Dunk and intentionally kicking the ball away, he knew full well he was going to get pushed and what he was doing. Watch it back, I don't think there is any surprise from Jota at all.
My whole point on this, is that 'raising your hands' or a push being an automatic caution just isn't in the rules. We see pushes like this all the time when one player is stopping another from taking a throw or free kick and you rarely see the player in possession get penalised. How many goal keepers do you see get pushed after a striker is trying to get the ball back after scoring - again rarely ever booked.
Then the context. Jota commits a foul. After the whistle he has a kick at the ball right next to Dunk's head while he's lying on the floor. He then gets up and starts with the ball again, first standing on it, then as Dunk gets to him he kicks it away. It's not just Dunk who has been played like a fool, the ref has as well. That is all I'm saying. Week in week out most refs wouldn't have given a yellow for that.