Hackett View: Dias should have seen red for penalty challenge v Everton
We’re delighted to welcome former Premier League referee Keith Hackett as our exclusive columnist. Each week he’ll be giving his views on the biggest talking points at Everton.
Keith Hackett believes Manchester City defender Ruben Dias should have been sent off after giving away a penalty against Everton on Sunday.
The Portuguese centre-back gave away the spot-kick after a wayward back-pass from Oleksandr Zinchenko saw Richarlison rushing through on goal.
Dias brought the Brazilian forward down in the box and Michael Oliver promptly pointed to the spot, though he only brandished a yellow for the City centre-half.
Speaking exclusively to Goodison News, Hackett expressed his belief that Dias should have received his marching orders for intentionally taking down Richarlison.
Hackett said: “I don’t think the challenge was for the ball, the challenge was specifically to take the player out.
“My view is that I think that Michael Oliver has though ‘well, I’m going to give him a yellow on the basis that the player’s challenge was for the ball’.
“For me that’s a red card, denial of an obvious goalscoring opportunity, he should’ve gone.
“It’s not a clear and obvious error because it’s a subjective decision made by the referee. VAR isn’t going to come in and ask him to have another look, though I would like it to have done.
“He’s got it wrong in my opinion, but it is only my opinion.”
Wouldn’t have changed much
It is always difficult with challenges like the one that Dias put in on Richarlison because no one can truly know what the player’s intentions were.
Some may claim that his attempt was a professional foul executed purely to prevent Richarlison from getting a shot off, with others equally having every right to suspect he was making a legitimate attempt at winning the ball.
Though we tend to favour the argument of the latter camp, it would have been interesting to see how a red card might have impacted the game, though with Everton’s form it wouldn’t have likely made much difference.
Ultimately the Blues were given the opportunity to score from the spot and they couldn’t do so, with Gylfi Sigurdsson’s spot-kick placed at an easy height for Ederson to push clear.
Dias has been a phenomenal player for City this season and much of their success has been built on his summer capture from Benfica, but Everton’s fortunes probably wouldn’t improved much had he been ejected from the pitch.
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