Mark Clattenburg has suggested that Aston Villa were fortunate to be given an equalising goal by Leeds United in their Championship clash on Sunday afternoon.
United took the lead in a contentious manner when Matteusz Klich scored, despite most players on the pitch stopping to allow the ball to be put out of play after an injury to Villa forward Jonathan Kodija.
This led to uproar from players and coaching staff alike, and was only resolved when Marcelo Bielsa allowed the Villans to walk the ball in at the restart.
But former Premier League referee Clattenburg has claimed that Villa were lucky to be on the receiving end of such benevolence.
Writing in a column for the Daily Mail, he said: “The bottom line is, the injury to Aston Villa’s Jonathan Kodjia was not to his head, so Leeds United’s players were well within their rights to play on.
“They did, and scored through Mateusz Klich. Villa were furious but they should have played to referee Stuart Attwell’s whistle.
“There is nothing in the rules to say Attwell should have stopped play so Kodjia could receive treatment and Villa were fortunate Leeds felt like giving them a goal back.”
OPINION
Technically, Clattenburg is right. There are few people who know the laws of the game as well as he does, and if he says that United had every right to score, then they had every right to score. That being said, there is also a moral element that comes into this discussion, and from a sportsmanlike perspective, was Klich right to capitalise on Villa’s lapse? Absolutely not. It’s one thing to continue playing, but to continue playing after having given the impression that you were about to stop proceedings is an altogether more devious thing to do. Aside form anything else, would you want to win a football match with such underhanded tactics? Surely not. At least this way Bielsa has shown that he is a decent and fair man, and has hopefully managed to salvage some of the reputation that was put on the line when his players decided to pull the wool over Villa’s eyes.