Watford vs Sunderland

[Runner Ref]

For me, distance definitely plays a factor, but being that distance out doesn't necessarily rule out red on its own. Just look at the clip @socal lurker shared.

The part that makes me say yellow is the control aspect, or there lack of it

 

[bester]

What makes people think he's not highly likely to gain control of the ball?

 

[RefereeX]

What makes people think he's not highly likely to gain control of the ball?

Nobody said he wasn't likely to gain control of the ball, just that there is enough doubt there because of the distance and height of the ball played as to whether he will gain control. Could be tricky to control etc, keeper may get there quicker than expected. Too much uncertainty.

 

[Russell Jones]

I think the old law book would disagree with you on that one Russell:

"distance between the offence and the goal."

We can consider the position of the attacker in terms of making that judgment of likelihood to control the ball and your use of the word potentially puts this in doubt too imo.

Fair point James, you're right we should be in line with what law advises. And it's in no way surprising that the law book is written in keeping with the 99% of DOGSO situations where the attacker is where the offence is! For me, therefore, I would absolutely consider the location of the foul in this instance and then broadly discount it as irrelevant to the decision in question. So, for clarity, I'm in no way arguing that this MUST be red, there's doubt over Control and you can make a case for a covering defender .. I'm just saying that reaching a conclusion of Yellow in significant part because of the distance to goal isn't (IMO) the most effective approach.