Ally McCoist slams key decision made in Everton v Liverpool live on talkSPORT
Ally McCoist has slammed referee Craig Pawson for his decision to send Ashley Young off in the Premier League clash between Everton and Liverpool, claiming he made his own job more difficult.
The former Scottish international claimed that, while the decision was probably correct to show two yellow cards, he could have made his job easier by just having a word with Young instead of brandishing the second card.
McCoist then suggested that, if Pawson had taken that route, he would have saved himself the backlash of failing to send Ibrahima Konate off later in the game, another call he feels the referee got wrong.
McCoist was speaking live on talkSPORT on 23 October when he stated: “Somebody will tell me it’s two yellow cards, and do you know something, they’re probably right with the Ashley Young ones.
“I just think the referee’s got to… I genuinely think he’s got to cut him a little bit of slack. I think [if] after the second one he says: ‘Look, Ashley, you could easily be off for that one’.
“If he does that, he solves himself a problem later on when he should send Konate off.”
The incidents should be judged in isolation
Even without Young having been sent off earlier in the game, it’s nearly impossible to explain how Konate got away without seeing red. Even Jurgen Klopp knew it, made clear by his decision to drag him off immediately after the incident.
McCoist makes a good point in saying that if he hadn’t sent Young off there could have been more leniency over the Konate decision, but it would only have upped the scrutiny of the refereeing performance after the game as both calls would have been wrong.
While it was a game-changing moment for Everton, the blame for the red card has to rest with Young for diving in while on a yellow card. His experience at the top level should have been enough to know it was a stupid decision.
The referee, however, was equally sloppy in his own decision-making as the 38-year-old defender. There can be no excusing the call, especially with the second yellow given against Everton, but what’s done is done.
In other Everton news, a journalist has shared one unseen incident in the Merseyside derby.