Michael Essien and Rob Styles

[denniseagle]

What for the tackle or the feigning or for playing for Chelsea?

All three.


In seriousness though, no-one can convince me that his play acting did not delay the production of the card and possibly/probably altered the colour shown.

It may be endemic in the game to try and affect reffereeing decisions by feining injury ,just as it is becoming more prevalent to wave the imaginary card (Essien guilty of that as well).
Perhaps if some Refs took a stand and sent players off it might stop it becoming acceptable, as it is on the continent.

 

[andy2002]

My beef was that the challenge was totally abysmal, no attempt to make the ball and he then faked injury which, along with who he plays for, seemed to influence Styles to essentially let him go unpunished. Is anyone seriously saying Styles shouldn't have sent him off?

How do you know he 'faked the injury'? Unless, you are him how could you possibly know if going in like Essien did resulted in him hurting himself. It makes me laugh when fans and commentators pontificate about whether a player is hurt or not - unless you're standing in his fucking football boots there's no possible way you could know. Everything else is just speculation and guesswork.

 

[stavros]

There is no way you can be grounded like that by flying in studs up as Essien did. What was all the more galling was his gesturing to Styles to send off the Bolton player later on. Fucking hypocrite.

 

[andy2002]

There is no way you can be grounded like that by flying in studs up as Essien did. What was all the more galling was his gesturing to Styles to send off the Bolton player later on. Fucking hypocrite.

Essien was out of order for the tackle and trying to get another player sent off, but whether he was injured himself is something only he could possibly know. You have NO way of knowing for sure so why not just stick to criticising him for the stuff we can, for the most part, agree on?

 

[stavros]

You have NO way of knowing for sure

Perhaps not but he did seem to make a miraculous recovery when only a yellow was produced.

 

[bigbry]

There is no way you can be grounded like that by flying in studs up as Essien did. What was all the more galling was his gesturing to Styles to send off the Bolton player later on. Fucking hypocrite.

Ah, now you're talking sense at last - that left a nasty taste in my mouth as well - the rest was just a jealous anti- chelsea rant.

It was a bad tackle but not the worst I've seen by a long way - it looked worse in slow motion but the ref hasn't got that facility.

Also I don't think retrospective action should be taken on the player for something the ref sees and deals with - if the ref got it wrong deal with th ref, if he didn't see it deal with the player. Easy !