When Collins gets sent off, why the hell isn't Jon Obi Mikel at least cautioned? He pushes the ref and is in his face for a good 30 seconds, absolutely disgraceful behaviour. The other way round and our player gets a booking at least. Double standards again.
Funnily enough, when I saw the card being shown initially I thought it was to Obi Mikel for what looked like a push on the ref
Exactly. in the furore of the actual match I didn't realise what had actually happened as we didn't get a replay. It wasn't until I saw the highlights that the red card was for Collins. Utterly disgraceful from Mikel, but when do the refs show some courage?
Along with everyone else I have no opinion at all on the Collins card as I havent seen it. If as the Linesman saw he elbowed Frieser in the head the red is right but I really cant say. Mikel should have got a red though pushing the ref like that is a red according to the rules - if you are going to send a player off due to the letter of the law when they raise a hand to a player you should certainly apply the law for an agressive push like that
He dived to get the player sent off as simple as that, we had been niggling and dirty all the way through so wasn’t a surprise. For further details see ‘TheOatcake’
Mikel clearly should have been sent off. Michael O Neil says it wasn't a sending off but how does he know when it wasn't caught on camera and happened off the ball so he wouldn't have been watching that part of the pitch? He's having a go at the ref when he's lucky not to be down to nine men. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p08vzcw0
I think Mikel was stupid doing what he did but it was hardly an aggressive push. We don't know if anything untoward was said of course but all I saw there was him trying to grab the ref's arm to stop him raising it. Stupid most certainly seeing as the card was in the hand and the ref had made his decision. This idea that "you can't touch officials physically" doesn't hold water though does it? We see it almost every week where players swarm around the ref and sometimes touch them trying to influence a decision. It's not right and, as we all know, if one of our players did that he would be off. Yet again though we saw a totally incompetent refereeing performance. Every time we brushed against a Stoke player it was a foul for them. So many good tackles (Kane for example brilliantly won the ball, and the ref blew) were penalised in the home team's favour. You could say it was the big club v little club syndrome again but it stinks. Referees, in general, are weak and easily influenced/conned. Most of them should get themselves another job. If only we had rugby union-type refs in the game. I was amazed that he sent one of theirs off and was just waiting for him to even it up by red carding one of ours as well.
Every time Stoke went near our box I was saying to Laura "stand him up. stand him up" I didn't want a Barnsley player making a challenge in the box. I'm convinced the ref would have given them a penalty to even things up.
O'Neill says they have footage of the incident - and basically is accusing Frieser of lying and simulation. No-one else seems to have seen this footage so I don't know where it comes from. The referee's assistant certainly saw enough to flag for a serious foul. I doubt very much if the decision will be over turned.
There data analysts were filming the match and evidence from them was presented to the F.A https://www.stokecityfc.com/news/2020/october/Nathan-Collins-suspension-overturned/