I agree. Though I think ‘fan’ may be a very loose term in this case. Seemed some kind of one man protest with his t shirt stating ‘stop oil’ on it.
Surely that Gordon should be booked too? I know it's not a dive, but he tried to deceive the ref for a penalty? I hate that kinda stuff. Being booked would stop it a hell of a lot.
Ref has been poor too. I know they're worse in the EFL, but this is top flight of English football representation, with VAR, and it's still abysmal.
I can’t believe that’s your takeaway from that game. They got diddled time after time by one of the worst refereeing performance I’ve ever seen and showed unbelievable heart and character.
It's not about whether it's not a foul, is a foul, etc etc... it's about the consistency of it. If one is a foul, when it's repeated 3 minutes later by the opposition, surely it should still be a foul. It really is poor.
I agree with Shearer and Lampard, it was never a red in a million years, a cynical late strong trip, absolutely, but not a red. The ref was 8 yards from it and made the call, which was the right one, but then when someone 150 miles away watching on TV says look again he changes his mind. The ref was closer than the TV camera. A magnificent effort by Everton to win it with 10 men mind.
I'm only commenting on one aspect of it. I didn't watch it all - first twenty minutes and then tuned back in around the 60 minute mark. Yes the referee was poor but there's nothing new there, at whatever level of football. But their blatant gamesmanship at the end was well over the top and the referee probably lost his bottle thinking "I really want to punish them for this but I dare not let Newcastle score". Goodison was a cauldron and I couldn't help wondering if they will escape relegation. I suspect they will but it would be funny if they did go down and their first match in August was home to Rotherham or something when they would be expecting Man Utd. I wonder if they would have such a packed crowd one league down as well - probably yes because Villa managed to hang on to their fan base whenever they have been relegated.