Reading’s Nelson Oliveira has demanded that the Football Association take action over his facial injury as he blasts Aston Villa’s Tyrone Mings in a scathing verdict of events.
The forward suffered a horror injury in the club’s 0-0 draw with the Villans as defender Mings landed with his foot directly on his face, gruesome pictures revealed afterwards of a broken nose and two deep gashes, one above his eyebrow and one deep on the bridge of his nose.
Speaking of the incident, Oliveira has hammered Mings by insisting he could have avoided him and urged the FA to look into it.
He told the Mirror: “I’m not saying he did it on purpose but he could have avoided me 100 per cent,.
“He texted me to apologise. At the time I hadn’t seen the video. Football is an aggressive game but that is not football. It could have been much worse; I could be blind.
It’s up to the FA to look at these things. If the same thing happened to Harry Kane what would happen? How would the FA look at it when his career could have been over? It’s a question to ask people and the media.
“If this happens in Portugal they would look at it again. You see UFC fighters come off looking better than me.”
Opinion
The incident with Mings was a seriously nasty one and while the defender insists that it was an accident the replays might suggest he could have avoided taking the action of placing his boot on Oliveira’s face. The Reading man is obviously fuming with how things turned out and understandably so and demanding FA action suggests he thinks it is worthy of much more than a telling off. He makes a good point though – had this happened to a star footballer in the Premier League, the media would be analysing it, pundits would be jumping on the bandwagon and an investigation would have taken place. Just because it is in the second tier does not make it any less of a serious issue and Oliveira is well within his rights to demand something after picking up one of the nastiest looking injuries in some time. There is no suggestion Mings intended to hurt him, just that he could have taken action to avoid such a serious incident. Does that constitute dangerous play, just as a two footed tackle would? That is for the FA to decide – if they look at it, of course.