Tony Cascarino slams penalty award in Everton v Tottenham Hotspur
Tony Cascarino was furious with the penalty James Rodriguez won in Friday night’s 2-2 draw between Everton and Tottenham Hotspur.
Gylfi Sigurdsson and Harry Kane scored doubles as both sides took hits to their European charge but it was the award of a penalty for the Blues that left Cascarino stewing.
Speaking on talkSPORT’s GameDay Breakfast [06:00, 17/04/21] the former Republic of Ireland international laid into Rodriguez for making the most of contact from Sergio Reguilon.
“Wow, you see the images on Sky and you’re thinking ‘wow’,” he said.
“It was just slowing it down and you’re trying to look for contact and saying it’s a pen. I just didn’t see it as a pen at all. It’s not good for football.
“Rodriguez is looking to go, as soon as he can go he’s going down, the slightest of touches he’s going down.”
He added: “I find penalties incredible how they’re given, I think forwards just knows how to get them and it’s easily done and impossible to defend in many situations in your 18-yard box because you’re going to get a penalty given, look at the amount of pens given nowadays.
“Pens have like doubled in numbers, to me it’s just frustrating.”
Debatable decision
It’s about time we got another penalty really, Friday night’s was just our fourth of the season. [Transfermarkt]
That means only four sides have won less, so forgive us for refusing to pile on Rodriguez for that penalty award.
It was a tough one and subsequent TV camera replays still didn’t give a proper definitive answer.
The one thing to say, however, is that Rodriguez didn’t have much cause to go down for no reason – the ball was set perfectly for him to stroke the ball past Hugo Lloris in the Spurs goal, and we don’t think he would risk VAR ruling a dive against him.
So surely there was some contact and with his leg swinging back it wouldn’t have taken much to knock his balance.
Would we be angry if that was given against us? Probably, but that’s the way it goes. Maybe we just got away with one, but we think Cascarino went too strong here as there are plenty more prominent examples of players cheating and throwing themselves down.
This wasn’t the worst and doesn’t deserve that level of attention.
In other Everton news, Blues defender wanted by high-flying club but Brands sets £17m+ demand.