Former Premier League referee Keith Hackett has explained why Manchester City man Rodri should’ve been sent off against Liverpool last weekend.
The Spaniard had already been booked for a cynical foul after dragging the shirt off a Reds player and shortly after receiving that caution he committed the exact same offence – only for his actions this time around to go unpunished.
Pep Guardiola’s side secured a 4-1 victory on the day and simply outclassed us during the second half at the Etihad, but had the former Atletico Madrid man received his marching orders with the scoreline at 1-1, the game could’ve panned out rather differently.
“I think he was very lucky,” Hackett told Football Insider.
“The thinking with referees is that the second yellow has to be more of an orange card. That shouldn’t be the case.
“This was a foul, for which Hooper awarded a free-kick. It was a pullback, the hands are on the body – it’s a caution every day.
“Some people will say that’s harsh, but not for me.
“If he wasn’t on a booking, he would have been shown a yellow card. In law, it is required.
“He should have gone, there’s no question.”
Another former top-flight referee Dermott Gallagher also weighed in on the incident recently and he claimed that referee Simon Hooper had made the right decision.
We don’t want to see players sent off but Rodri does certainly seem to get away with a lot of cynical fouls during games and there appeared to be no consistency in the decisions.
There is definitely room for improvement regarding the standard of officiating in the Premier League and even with VAR introduced into the game, we’re still seeing some questionable decisions.
Fabhino should have been booked twice for his first two tackles.
Klopp actually said if City had been reduced to ten men they still would have won. He, at least, is being honest about the Liverpool performance.
Why is it that pep was in a plyers face out side his technical area nothing said and the amount of times city’s player’s have surrounded refs lots of times in the past with other teams as well paying with us in the past like we did this game and there is nothing done about but we get called on it