RateTheRef

Woeful and abject.

How is he supposed to stop his foot?

My initial thought on watching the game was Utter Rubbish on the red card. Absolutely no intent. Not only is tackling being outlawed, kicking the ball is. Anybody who understands football knows when you kick a ball you have to follow through, sheer physics. The very good game has been spoilt by a shocking decision. I hope the card is successfully appealed and somebody gives Chris Kavanagh and Peter Bankes some sound advice on the game. Very poor.

New instructions to be given by managers to players will have to be along the lines of 'don't kick the ball whatever you do because you may also kick an opponent'  Instructions to be issued before the start of the game so that nobdy kicks the ball to kick off, half tiime will arrive with 5 players from each side having been cautioned for time wasting because the officials couldn't persuade anyone to kick off. They will of course add on 10 minutes to complete the half.
Teams will come out for the second half and follow the same procedure, another 5 players from each side cautioned etc.,etc.
End of game with no players injured, no VAR involvement, and the pundits will pontificate for a further half hour on what may have happened.

Sorry guys, however, this is the way that the game is going and I still haven't worked out what they are trying to achieve with the use of VAR and the instructions to officials. Answers of a postage stamp please.

I’m going to go against the grain here and side with the officials. The level and force of the follow through is totally unnecessary and a clear example of excessive force which endangers his opponent’s safety.

Regardless of individual opinion on intent, the UEFA directives on this type of incident have been rather clear in the last few years.

I agree Affy. Totally correct call in law and current interpretation imo. I don’t necessarily  like the laws and the current application but I think Chris Kavanagh did his job correctly under the current guidelines.

As you say UEFA RAPs have incidents like this in them and when the contact point is as high as in this incident then I believe a RC is usually advised.

The Subbuteo Euros?

Putting things into some sort of perspective after much thought on this decision I have the following observations.
Firstly, the ball was cleared and the referee was quite happy with the clearance and must have thought that the following contact was accidental and a natural part of the game.
Without VAR that would have been that!
In the other 57 league matches played in the United Kingdom today, how many officials would have thought any different to Chris Kavanagh about the incident? Of course, we can't answer that question, however, as someone who has played at a decent level and also officiated, I would bet that there would be very few if any who found fault with anything and would most probably have thought, as I did, that is was an unfortunate accident.

The controversy has only arisen because of the use of VAR and, as I have said many times before, this means that we are playing with a different interpretation to TLOG in matches in the PL than we are in the rest of football in the UK --at all levels, whether league or grassroots!
We have seen a goal disallowed for Newcastle because the ball rebounded off a keeper and hit the scorer's arm which was down by his side, this has been followed by the sending off of a player who was making a clearance.

Is this the game that we want to watch? In the Arsenal game last night one of the Everton players made a cracking tackle, the Arsenal player went down shouting and 5 other Arsenal player were appealing for a foul. Fortunately, Jonathan Moss, who has played the game at a decent level, just ignored them all because there was absolutely nothing wrong with the challenge.  This has been followed by today's incidents.

Joke decision from a joke system!