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Former top Premier League referee rules on Newcastle v West Ham controversial incident

3 years ago
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Keith Hackett was one of the top Premier League referees back in the day.

The former top referee giving his call on this controversial incident in the Newcastle v West Ham match.

An incident that was surely the key moment in deciding the direction of the match.

The incident that Keith Hackett has looked at, is the one that saw Newcastle United end up taking the lead.

Craig Dawson showing poor control and then a desperate challenge to try and retrieve the situation seeing Joelinton fall to the ground.

Referee Kevin Friend allowed the play to continue rather than blowing for a foul.

Allan Saint-Maximin taking the ball on well but his weak shot surely saved…only for Fabianski and Diop to combine in allowing Newcastle United to take the lead, the West Ham defender ending up kicking the ball into his own net.

Keith Hackett telling West Ham Zone what his verdict was on the incident:

“What Dawson has done is, he’s kicked the ball ahead of himself, lost control, and he’s recklessly challenged the player [Joelinton].

“Yellow card, no question, a yellow card.

“But the referee shows some courage here because playing advantage on the yellow card is a very dangerous situation, but in fairness to Kevin Friend, he applied an advantage and the outcome was a goal.

“It was a brilliant piece of refereeing, then to go back, find where Dawson was on the pitch and caution.

“This for me was a justifiable second yellow card, given the circumstance of where and when and how the foul took place.

“It was reckless.”

So the former top Premier League referee backing Kevin Friend on both his decision to allow play to continue and enable the goal to be scored AND the decision to send Craig Dawson off.

Dawson had already been booked and the combination of red card and opening goal in those few seconds, ensured a comfortable win for Newcastle, especially when only five minutes later Fabianski managed to drop a straightforward corner at Joelinton’s feet three yards out.

Or at least it should have been a comfortable win…if it hadn’t been for Steve Bruce’s amazingly negative tactics, playing ultra defensively in the second half despite a man advantage and leading 2-0. Bruce inviting the Hammers to take total control with ten men and score twice, the NUFC Head Coach very lucky that Joe Willock saved him with the late winner.

When it comes to that opening goal and red card incident that sent Newcastle United on their way, I’m guessing the only ‘controversial’ aspect to it, is that maybe back in the day, the referee might have decided to forget about the yellow card challenge and think the goal was punishment enough in the circumstances. Rather than a double punishment from the one passage of play.

A bit like in the past where referees would often allow a number of poor challenges to go by before eventually booking somebody, for a challenge that was no worse than what had gone before, simply deciding that he’d gone far enough in the match without giving a yellow card.

That still happens to an extent but nowhere near what was the case in the past.

Craig Dawson was absolutely stupid putting in that challenge on the halfway line when he knew he was already on a booking, thankfully the referee doing the right thing regardless of West Ham benefitting from the goal as well.

Stats from BBC Sport:

Newcastle 3 West Ham 2 – Saturday 17 April 12.30pm

Goals:

Newcastle:

Diop OG 36, Joelinton 41, Willock 82

West Ham:

Diop 73, Lingard 80 pen, Dawson sent off 36

(Half-time stats in brackets)

Possession was West Ham 65% (70%) Newcastle 35% (30%)

Total shots were West Ham 16 (4)  Newcastle 16 (11)

Shots on target were West Ham 6 (1) Newcastle 8 (6)

Corners were West Ham 8 (2) Newcastle 3 (3)

Referee: Kevin Friend

Newcastle United:

Dubravka, Murphy, Fernandez, Clark, Dummett, Ritchie, Shelvey, Sean Longstaff (Willock 81), Almiron, Joelinton (Carroll 90+8), Saint-Maximin (Wilson 64)

Unused Subs:

Gillespie, Gayle, Krafth, Lewis, Manquillo, Hendrick

Crowd: 00,000

(Match report : The Clash of the Titans – Kong vs Godzilla – Read HERE)

(Bizarre Steve Bruce claims after Newcastle 3 West Ham 2 – Read HERE)

(3 Positives and 3 Negatives from Newcastle 3 West Ham 2 – Read HERE)

(Newcastle 3 West Ham 2 – Match ratings and comments on all the NUFC players – Read HERE)

(Newcastle 3 West Ham 2 – Joe Willock saves Steve Bruce’s very lucky bacon – Read HERE)

(Newcastle 3 West Ham 2 – Instant NUFC fan/writer reaction to Saturday’s eventful win – Read HERE)

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