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Wrexham- Chelsea

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Tealeaf

Lighting the darkest hour
Staff member
Level 5 Referee
Very good review for the red card. It’s more than a tactical foul - high, fast and not an attempt to play the ball.

I needed a replay to see it as I thought it was just a spoiler foul on first look, but clearly not.
 
The Ref Stop
Very good review for the red card. It’s more than a tactical foul - high, fast and not an attempt to play the ball.

I needed a replay to see it as I thought it was just a spoiler foul on first look, but clearly not.
I thought he was slightly unlucky.

VAR re-reffing the game.

I still believe officials show a yellow "hoping" for a referral to put them right.
 
From the angle behind looking towards the defending/wrexham half it looks like it could be a yellow, but looking at the angle looking upfield it looks like a red. I’m content with a red - he should have just tried to play the ball - always helps!
 
I think the announcement of the decision should have emphasised the excessive force aspect of it - the high (glancing) contact wasn't the main reason it was SFP rather than reckless IMO.
 
I can't remember what game but a couple of months ago a very similar tackle was not reviewed and it was defendes as because it was glancing. What is reviewd and what isn't is anyone's guess these days.

For me the onfield decision should have stood whatever it was.

And agree, the onfield announcement was terrible. "Catches his opponent high" sounds like someone at the pub explaing a tackle to a mate.
 
I think football expects a red card here just like they did for the Dalot tackle on Doku, all this stuff regarding glancing contact to justify a yellow is one where it would lead to inconsistencies as how much is a glancing contact could differ from one ref to another. I feel challenges like this with studs leading is clearly endangering the opponent and it's only luck if that contact is glancing or not. In this case more so than the Dalot one there is force in the challenge.
 
There was much more speed and intensity in the Dobson challenge yesterday than there was with Dalot’s. He came flying in where Dalot’s was more just sticking his leg out. My immediate reaction yesterday was he was in big trouble, whereas for Dalot’s it took replays in slow motion for me to even see it.

Personally I would rather VAR had left this alone though. As I’ve said before, my view is when VAR recommends a review it should be for an incident where every referee looks at it thinks what a clanger the referee has dropped. This was a possible, perhaps even a probable, red card but was a yellow really a clear and obvious error?
 
For me, these are the stills that highlight the potential damage - he's flying in from the left of the screen, studs up, and it's arguably more luck than judgement that he misses getting full contact with Garnacho's lower left leg (as opposed to glancing contact), which would more likely than not have resulted in serious injury.

You can't quite see from these stills but Garnacho's left foot is almost fully planted at the point contact was made, so a slightly fuller connection would have likely been catastrophic either to bone, knee, or both.

He's lunging in with excessive force - SFP every day of the week.

Screenshot_20260308_125015_Chrome.jpg
Screenshot_20260308_130100_Chrome.jpg
 
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Just as bad if not worse? Have you considered the actual force in the challenge? (Not just force in the contact)
Agree that the force in the challenge (intensity) is higher in this one. Have you considered point of contact, the amount of contact, direction of contact and the force in the actual contact? It has to be a combination of factors and not just the force in the challenge.
My comment is my opinion on the actual injury/hurt caused as well as potential.

The bigger point was, IMO there is no way the difference of severity is so much so that Webb supports a yellow for one and the other has passed a "clear and obvious error" threshold. They should have both been red on the field with no VAR intervention regardless.
 
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