I have no qualms at all about players seeing yellow for dissent, particularly on crowding the ref. A few weeks of yellows and reds for this would hopefully go some way to addressing players’ attitudes on this matter. What will never be clear to fans watching is why, in incidents like the Dias and Lemina bookings, one out of three players is singled out for a card.
The question I have is following comments made on Sky about the Dias booking. The commentators suggested that Dias was booked because there were already two players speaking with the ref and Dias was the third on the scene. They referenced that this was the same with Lemina. Is this coincidence and the commentators putting 2 and 2 together and making 5? It feels odd that yellows would be issued based on whoever arrives at the referee third rather than the severity of the dissent.
In the two incidents, I could see why Dias was booked as he ran from some distance and got in Jones’ face whereas in the Lemina one, although he came from some distance, he didn’t look to sprint or be particularly vocal from the footage I’ve seen. Neves and the other Wolves player certainly looked to be worse offenders in terms of dissent towards Gillett in all respects other than they were nearer when they started speaking to him.