Is it right that we had no right of appeal with Dembele's ban? If so, does anyone know what the justification was for that? Also wondering if a ref spots a gouge in a future match and sends the player off, who therefore gets an automatic three match ban, the FA then can't do anything about it because the ref dealt with it at the time? There are just so many inconsistencies with that ruling compared to other decisions the FA has made, as had been pointed out here often (such as if the ref books an earlier foul but doesn't see a gouge, the FA then rules that it was part of the earlier incident, like they did with Torres).
From what I understood you can only appeal if you plead 'not guilty', which Dembele didn't, presumably hoping for more lenient punishment. You appeal against the verdict rather than the sentence.
We should've appealed the actual application of the punishment itself, rather than admit or deny anything. There's absolutely no doubt that the match officials saw the incident and are pretending that they didn't. What that says about the honesty of those in question is rather worrying, frankly.
The Man Utd team bus incident near Lego Towers was on BBC London again. Definitely grounds for the LLDC to make the Spanners pay all match day policing/stewarding costs methinks.
On the one hand the upcoming Bobby Moore documentary is getting a lot of positive reviews for the insightful interviews with his friends, family and former teammates. On the other hand there's a fair chunk of negativity aimed at the baffling decision to have "celebrity" West Ham "fan" Russell Brand included, for the simple reason Moore left Upton Park before Brand was even hatched.
In the BBC gossip column saw this Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino believes he should have been given greater backing by the club's hierarchy over the suspensions given to Dele Alli and Mousa Dembele during the run-in to the end of the Premier League season It comes from the Times and I am never subscribing to a Murdoch rag, but does anyone know what it's alluding to? Backing for what - appeals?
Can't really think of much else. Maybe he wanted to be seen to be fighting the teams corner. The players would remember that. Poch is a fiery bastard, I like.
It's behind a paywall, but the bit that anyone can read suggests what you thought it would. Sounds entirely made up, to me. Alli's ban was annoying, but he did exactly what he was accused of. The Dembele ban was clearly a stitch-up, as the linesman saw it, but even a normal ban would've seen him out for the season. Appeals are completely pointless anyway, for the most part. Virtually nobody gets off, except in cases of mistaken identity or enormous mistakes.
As the club were in negotiations with The FA to use Wembley at that time, one would presume they simply didn't want to rock the boat - because it wouldn't surprise me that The FA would be so petty as to decide that, as we were publicly questioning their judgment (or complete lack of it) they'd stop negotiating with us and begin negotiations with the Chavs.
As I said, the precedent has been set and I will live with that (in principle) . But the first PL player putting their fingers anywhere near an opponents' eyes that the officials claim <Wenger> on yet does not get a 6 match ban, or claim to have seen it when the footage shows they did not, then that is a different story altogether ...
Unfortunately it won't be a different story, it will be the same story. The story of one rule for some clubs and another rule for others. Like the ludicrously contrived reason for not charging Torres with gouging Vertonghen.
Actually didn't one of Chelski's players have his three match ban for pushing over an opponent reduced to two on appeal? Arguably being flattened is more painful than what Dembele did to Costa, who was in such pain that a few seconds later seems to have forgotten what eye was "gouged". But then we will see many red cards next season for violent conduct, which receive the standard three match ban despite being significantly more threatening than what Dembele did.
But that inconsistency will be even more telling now. And such officials can expect the media "trial by jury" their cowardice deserves.
Yep. Nemanja Matic: http://www.thefa.com/news/governanc...rnley-red-card-suspension-reduced-two-matches He was provoked, so it's ok, apparently. The same could be said for Dembele or pretty much anyone who's played against Costa. Pretty stupid reason to reduce the ban and I've no idea why it worked, to be honest. Chelsea clearly targeted our man and it worked, though I have little idea of how they knew it would. I don't think that I've seen anything in the past to indicate that he'd be easy to wind up. It started with Mikel standing on the back of his ankle and pushing him in the back and went from there.
