The Real Reason Mateo Kovacic Wasn't Sent Off Against Arsenal
Howard Webb hosted another episode of the PGMOL's Mic'd Up show. Among the focus was Michael Oliver's controversial decision not to send off Man City's Mateo Kovacic for his fouls on Arsenal's Martin Odegaard and Declan Rice.
Transcript
00:00 *intro*
00:03 Hello everybody, Adam Cleary, 442 here and nope, still not got that studio sorted.
00:08 Working on it, absolutely promise.
00:10 Anyway, Mateo Kovacic.
00:12 You know him, he's the football player for Manchester City who did this...
00:17 *pause*
00:20 And then did this...
00:22 *pause*
00:25 All within like a couple of minutes of each other and just...
00:28 Wasn't sent off...
00:30 Somehow.
00:31 Now I presume that you, like me, consider yourself a relatively intelligent person
00:35 who understands both the nuances and the intricacies and the laws of this game of football.
00:39 You're probably scratching your head at that thinking,
00:42 "I'm pretty sure that first one should have been a red card and I'm pretty sure even if it wasn't,
00:46 that second one should have been a yellow card."
00:48 And just doing the maths here, one red, that equals ascending off,
00:51 with two yellows, they equal ascending off.
00:54 You probably couldn't work out why he was still on the pitch.
00:57 But don't worry everybody, it's absolutely fine.
01:00 Everything's going to be okay because whistling Thanos Howard Webb,
01:04 he's done yet another episode of Ref Say The Funniest Things with Michael Owen,
01:09 in which they go through all the decisions and they show you the VAR playback
01:12 and they try and make you think that referees are just normal, like me and you.
01:15 And in their most recent episode, he was able to sit down with Michael Owen,
01:19 who, believe it or not, is actually standing in this photo,
01:21 and tell us why Kovacic wasn't sent off.
01:24 There were reasons, you see.
01:25 So, yeah, with there being no actual football happening right now,
01:30 and there not even being a transfer window to make up for it,
01:34 let's just overanalyse that for a bit.
01:35 So, it's Arsenal versus Man City, it's the 34th minute,
01:40 it's been incredibly tense, and William Saliba lays a short pass into Martin Odegaard,
01:45 just on the halfway line.
01:47 Kovacic, who's clearly been instructed to try and press in this area if he sees an opportunity,
01:52 thinks he might have sprung a trap here, and races after Odegaard to try and beat him to the ball.
01:57 The Norwegian's alive to the danger, though, he matches his run and he gets to it ahead of him.
02:02 Now, just as an aside here, if you think this is a rash decision,
02:04 then just have a look at where it would have left City.
02:07 With Kovacic winning the ball and presumably dumping Odegaard on his arse in the process,
02:12 that would have put himself, Foden and Haaland in a 3v2 against Saliba and Gabriel,
02:17 with a lot of space to run into.
02:20 He genuinely does need to try and make this challenge.
02:23 But, sadly for City and him, he doesn't get the ball and catches Odegaard really quite badly.
02:28 He's late, he's left his feet, he's caught the player fractionally above the angle,
02:33 and it's arguable that the angle is quote-unquote "from behind".
02:37 Michael Oliver is immediately on the scene, brandishing a yellow card.
02:41 It's at this point, though, the commentary suggests that he might well be in trouble,
02:45 as the decision goes to VAR and the replays show that, yes, it is quite a bad tackle.
02:51 Now, given the recent sendings off of Curtis Jones and Male Gusto,
02:55 both only fractionally late, not high, but certainly above the angle,
02:59 and not forceful, but certainly lacking enough control to make it safe,
03:03 this looks all the world like he's going to be asked to go to the monitor.
03:07 But, he's not, to the bafflement of fans, commentators, Arsenal's players, and Michael Arteta,
03:12 who has by now seen the replay himself.
03:15 So, what's the difference between this and these?
03:19 Well, Howard Webb's first assessment was that if it had been immediately given as a red card,
03:25 the VAR team would have looked at that and instantly confirmed it was the right decision.
03:30 They would not have asked Michael Oliver to reconsider it.
03:32 But the reason both Oliver and the VAR team were happy to go simply with a yellow card here is this.
03:39 If you look at it from this angle, you can sort of see that the point of contact for Kovacic on Odegaard
03:46 isn't fully studs on leg.
03:48 He's come in fractionally from the side and thus caught him with the side of his foot.
03:54 It's still bad, mate, don't get me wrong, it could and probably should be a red,
03:58 but the fact of the angle and the point of contact means he's far, far less likely to cause any sort of injury to his opponent.
04:06 There is still that telltale buckling of the leg though, which as we saw when Webb reviewed the Malagusta red card,
04:12 was the main thing VAR wanted to bring the referee's attention to.
04:16 But that's caused here only initially by the contact and not worsened with any sort of follow-through.
04:22 And this is the thing you need to understand about VAR.
04:25 They can see on that replay that it could be a red, but because they've examined the exact angle and point of contact,
04:31 they can also see that, yeah, you can get away with just a yellow there.
04:36 It becomes a subjective call, and in cases of subjectivity or where the on-field decision isn't factually or even technically wrong,
04:45 VAR is not supposed to intervene.
04:47 Now, as for how we avoided the second yellow for this follow-up tackle though, you'd have to ask Michael Oliver that one.
04:54 Webb himself saying on the show that Kovacic was an extremely fortunate player to stay on the pitch.
05:00 One interesting insight he did give here though, is that in these situations, referees are often hamstrung by a need to neither over nor under react to these fouls.
05:11 Whenever a player is on a yellow card, every little thing they do is going to be greeted by an outcry from the opposition to brandish a second card and send them off,
05:20 regardless of whether it merits it or not.
05:23 Oliver's immediate reaction here of notifying both the Arsenal players and the fans that he's not going to book him again,
05:30 clearly shows that he doesn't feel for a second this foul on Rice merits a card.
05:35 Which puts him in a weird position, because with the first foul being so close to being a red,
05:40 it almost feels like it shouldn't matter how egregious a second offence is.
05:45 He should just go for merely having made it.
05:48 But the reality is that there isn't a points system here, there aren't certain yellow cards that are worth more than others.
05:54 Every single foul has to be judged on its own merits, and Oliver's decision not to overreact here,
06:01 does ironically, when you see the replay, mean he technically underreacts.
06:06 And of course it's not in VAR's remit to get involved with any potential yellow card offences, so no chance of them dialing in and saying...
06:13 [Oli and Matt talking over each other]
06:39 And there you go, those are the reasons why Matty Okavicic wasn't sent off.
06:44 And you know what? Now that I've heard that explanation, the more I look at it, the more I still don't understand why he wasn't sent off.
06:51 Hey, do you know what? As they say, every cloud has a silver lining, and I have heard direct from Arsenal fans themselves,
06:57 that it was actually better that he stayed on the pitch, because it was sweeter to win against 11 men.
07:02 Look, here's one.
07:03 [Oli and Matt talking over each other]
07:08 So anyway, there you go, if you sat through all of that, then I'm just really, really sorry.
07:12 There was nothing else to talk about today.
07:14 You can go and grab me over on Twitter and demand those minutes of your life back.
07:18 Why not? @AlanClearyClery.
07:20 The entire 442 social spectrum is in the corner of the video, you know that by now.
07:25 And why not consider subscribing to us here on 442?
07:28 We just hit 451 subscribers.
07:31 451,000 subscribers, and that's another formation, so that's fun.
07:35 We've got that Scotland 4-6-0 coming up next, which nobody wants reminding of, so help us get there, that'll be nice.
07:41 Until next time though, thank you very much for watching.
07:43 I'm away to hand out two incredibly soft yellow cards, just to go and make up for that.
07:48 But until next time, I've been Adam Cleary, this has been 442, and I'll see you soon. Bye!
07:53 [outro music]