Talent Spotter wrote:
Credit to the FA for not caving in to the sky sports news induced frenzy over the tackle. Wish they did it more often.
Exactly. If they did pander to Newcastle (Who are just mard because they lost the game) it would set such a dangerous precedent. It would essentially mean every game would have to be re-refereed after it has happened and any retrospective bookings taken into account. You would end up with 3 or 4 banned per game no doubt. If they reviewed the Everton v City game from the weekend for example, James Milner would have ended up with about 5 bookings.
The law that they can ban a player if the officials didn't see it is fine, it catches the elbows and punches in back play and lets the referees referee.
Having said that, the referee who didn't at least book McManaman should be stood down from the next round of fixtures and have his poor assessment score made public.