Sky Sports pundit left perplexed by Anthony Taylor inconsistency between Everton and Arsenal
We’re delighted to welcome former Everton striker Kevin Campbell as our exclusive columnist. Each week the former Toffees captain will be giving his views on the biggest talking points at Goodison Park…
Virgil van Dijk should have been sent off against Everton just as Emerson Royal was against Arsenal says an exhausted Kevin Campbell.
Anthony Taylor showed the Tottenham defender a straight red in the North London derby on Saturday (1 October) for a foul on Gabriel Martinelli, after he had decided to only show the Liverpool centre-back a yellow for a very similar challenge on Amadou Onana in the Merseyside derby a month ago (3 September).
With the glaring inconsistency between two decisions from the same official such a short time apart, the Sky Sports pundit Campbell is left completely unaware of what is now supposed to constitute a sending off and what isn’t, because this sort of thing keeps happening.
“Here we go again, right?” he said speaking exclusively to Goodison News.
“I don’t know what a sending off is any more. I thought the van Dijk one was a red card.
“Emerson Royal was nowhere near the ball, and he takes him ankle-high, shin-high. It’s a red card. That’s the way the law is.
“Now, if he’d have just got a yellow I don’t think anyone would have moaned, if I’m honest.
“So I don’t know what a red card is from a yellow card any more. I’ve no idea.
“To be consistent, I said van Dijk’s challenge was a red card. He was over the ball and he was shin-high, and this one was definitely shin-high.
“He didn’t need to go in on him but he made the referee have to look at it, and if you do that and you’re that late you leave yourself open.
“That’s all it takes. Let’s be honest, if Martinelli snaps his ankle. ‘Oh but it was only a scrape’ doesn’t matter.”
There is a certain amount of subjectiveness to refereeing decisions on fouls, but with these two challenges so similar, in that they fulfil the same criteria of having studs making contact above the ankle – and in similar circumstances of home team players being fouled in heated derby games – then how does the same judge see them so differently?
It doesn’t help in the slightest for the overall view of equal officiating when former FIFA ref Dermot Gallagher attempts to justify the discrepancy but makes no sense at all on Sky Sports afterwards either.
It is lazy decision-making that does not keep to the same standard from game to game, and when Everton are repeatedly on the wrong end of such calls it feels like something more even when it likely isn’t.