Simon Jordan has lambasted both Sean Dyche and the umpires for issuing the Everton manager with a yellow card during the Merseyside derby.
Referee Craig Pawson cautioned Dyche midway through the second half of Everton’s 2-0 loss to Liverpool after he gesticulated in irritation after Ibrahima Konate was not awarded a second yellow card for a foul on Beto.
The Blues manager was annoyed by the decision and did not believe he deserved to be cautioned for his reaction, but former Crystal Palace chairman Jordan has criticized both Dyche’s behavior and the laws that the referees must now follow.
“The reason Sean was given a yellow card was not because the fans inside the stadium were gesticulating, but because he occupies a position of authority, which means he comes to a different standard than the fans,” he remarked on talkSport’s White & Jordan on Monday (23 October, 11:44).
“When he talks about how stunned he was to get a yellow card because he was doing what everyone else was doing, remember that you’re the manager of the football team, not a random sitting in the crowd who has no bearing on the outcome.” ‘Sean, don’t be ridiculous,’ I thought on that side. That contains both judgment and subjectivity.
“If the referee considers him a person in authority – whether that be a player, a captain of a side or manager of the season – breaching the current protocol or guidelines of how they should behave, they’re forced into the situation.”The problem is that we have devolved into a binary option. We have now arrived at this absurd decision in which irritation over a clearly bad judgment meets a consequence.
Unusual rule
Although Jordan appears to have just blamed everyone involved in the booking on Saturday (21 October), his views do have some validity, given the nature of the rules makes choices extremely tough for referees, while players and managers must walk a tightrope.
The judgment at Anfield was clearly wrong, and Dyche had every right to be frustrated by it, but Pawson is required by law to book the Everton manager because he reacted in a certain way to the decision.
Ultimately, this means that the officials are compounding their fault by making a second wrong. Would Dyche’s yellow card have been reversed if he had been booked in response to a decision that was later overturned by VAR?
Once again, this is a consequence of the complicated rules that referees must follow; yet, an experienced manager like Dyche should know when to disguise his actual sentiments about a judgment, and by the letter of the law (rightly or unjustly), he was booked, so he can’t have too many complaints.
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