Dean Saunders is adamant that the Aston Villa players should not have stopped when Jonathan Kodjia went down injured in the 1-1 draw against Leeds on Sunday.
Liam Cooper’s coming together with Villa striker saw him hit the deck, and even though the visitors urged Leeds to stop play and kick the ball out, the Whites went on to score through Matuesz Klich, but Saunders thinks that the Villa players were wrong to act in this way, mainly because Kodjia had not suffered a head injury.
He says that the rules are clear regarding this issue, suggesting that Leeds were right to continue playing unless the referee said otherwise.
‘This is not going to popular, what I’m about to say. But, I’m going to say it how I saw it. For a start, [Leeds] should not have kicked the ball out of play. It wasn’t a head injury, it was a leg injury, and it is up to the referee, the rules are, the referee makes that decision to avoid things like this happening,” he said on talkSPORT.
“He played on, so the Villa players shouldn’t have stopped, it is not their right to point and say kick the ball out of play, the lads took it all the way down the line, he’s took the goal lovely, and it’s all kicked off. But for me, they should not have kicked the ball out of play.
“They should have played on until the referee blew his whistle. The rules are quite clear, if it is a head injury, kick the ball out of play straight away.”
“Leeds shouldn’t have kicked the ball out of play. It wasn’t a head injury.” ????
“The Villa players shouldn’t have stopped. The rules are quite clear.”
Dean Saunders says his old club #AVFC were wrong to stop playing vs #LUFC. pic.twitter.com/mZmrtaRoa4
— talkSPORT (@talkSPORT) April 28, 2019
OPINION
This is not an opinion that is going to please the Villa fans in the slightest, is it? Many of them will surely think that the players were well within their rights to urge Leeds to kick the ball out of play. However, Saunders is right – Leeds did not have to kick the ball out unless it was a head injury, or until the referee blew his whistle. Why they thought they were allowed to do that remains to be seen, but it it safe to say that it caused a whole circle of other events to unfold. It was a rather bizarre match all round, especially after Marcelo Bielsa allowed Villa to equalise to avoid bad sportsmanship. It is hard to recall another game where things have unfolded as they have done here, but ultimately, it has cost the Whites three points. Bielsa was gracious to allow such a thing to happen, but at the end of the day, none of this would have happened if the Villa players had adhered to the rules.