Mark Clattenburg believes referee Michael Oliver and VAR official John Brooks got most of the decisions correct during Chelsea’s chaotic 4-1 win over Tottenham on Monday night.
Spurs opened the scoring through Dejan Kulusevski’s deflected strike before FIVE goals were disallowed. Chelsea leveled when Cristian Romero was sent off for recklessly driving into Enzo Fernandez, with Cole Palmer scoring the resulting penalty.
Destiny Udogie joined Romero in the dressing room after the break after receiving a second yellow card, although he was fortunate to avoid a straight red card earlier in the match. Nicolas Jackson took advantage of Chelsea’s two-man advantage to score a hat-trick.
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Seven talking points as Chelsea edge past nine-man Tottenham in a chaotic derby
Clattenburg discussed the match in his column for the Daily Mail and sympathized with Oliver and Brooks, insisting that “they were tested to the limit with what happened”. The ex-referee believes that five major decisions were made during the match.
The first was Udogie’s shocking two-footed tackle on Raheem Sterling, which only resulted in a yellow card. Clattenburg believes Brooks should have told Oliver to show a red card because “it is precisely these types of challenges that should be banned in football”.
Although Clattenburg was critical of his colleagues there, he insists they handled the other calls well – including the decision NOT to eject Romero for kicking Levi Colwill. Clattenburg thinks this was “pure irritability” on Romero’s part, but not violent behavior.
Romero saw red moments later for his challenge on Fernandez. Clattenburg believes Oliver and Brooks were right to send Romero off at the second attempt because he “took on a challenge and took a big risk even though he had clearly won the ball”.
Udogie was eventually sent off in the second half for “wiping out Sterling” with a “rash” challenge. Clattenburg thinks this was “one of the easiest decisions of the evening.”
Reece James was also in danger of being sent off after catching Udogie with his forearm earlier in the match. Clattenburg believes the Chelsea skipper avoided serious punishment because he “used his arm to jump, not to run into danger”.
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Although Clattenburg was satisfied with the level of the referees on Monday evening, Ange Postecoglou was not. The Spurs boss complained about the use of VAR. “Decisions are decisions: you either accept it or you don’t accept it,” he told Sky Sports after the match.
“Some of it is self-inflicted, (but) if we start complaining about bad decisions every week, what will happen is what happened today: a forensic study of every decision.
“I think that’s the way the game goes. I don’t like it – I could be a lone voice as I’ve been told this is the way forward. With VAR intervention it just felt like a lot of hanging around. At some point we have to accept the referee’s decision.
“This continued erosion of the authority of the referees, this is what the game is going to have: they will no longer have any authority, it will diminish and we will be in the power of someone sitting a few miles away watching the television . screen.”
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