Aston Villa fans have been left furious at a challenge from Chelsea’s Ben Chilwell on midfielder Jacob Ramsey.
The challenge was made after the 30-minute mark in the West Midlands side’s eventual 2-0 Premier League home defeat to Graham Potter’s side.
With the score at 1-0, Ramsey had the ball in his control before a sliding challenge from Chilwell resulted in a foul in Villa’s favour.
However, on closer look, it seems that the Chelsea left-back had his studs up on the back of the Villa midfielder’s leg, whilst not getting particularly close to the ball.
The decision seems to have garnered criticism, with journalists Robin Mumford and Alex Mitton both stating that they believed the challenge should have resulted in a red card for Chilwell.
TIF Thoughts on Chilwell’s tackle
We believe that due to the fact Chilwell’s studs were up and he got nowhere near the ball, referee Robert Jones should at least have been given the opportunity to go to the VAR screen to check the initial decision himself.
Although every decision gets checked by VAR initially, we think that the decision was rushed and therefore the officials at Stockley Park didn’t take the opportunity to really scrutinise the challenge, which could have resulted in a nasty injury for Ramsey.
We are surprised VAR didn’t check the original decision as we think this was a potential red card challenge, due to the fact that on replay there seems to be very little evidence of Chilwell actually going for the ball, which could have put Ramsey in danger of a serious injury. Especially as Emerson Royal recently saw red for a similar challenge, though he had left the floor with one leg.
Under law 12 of the FA’s rule book it states that serious foul play warrants a red card, which is a challenge or tackle that endangers the safety of an opponents. This certainly appears to apply to the challenge above, as Chilwell is nowhere near the ball and has his studs raised and connecting with the ankle and lower shin area with force behind it.
At the time Villa were on top in the game despite being a goal down, and a red-card could have further swung the balance of the match in their favour, instead of resulting in the eventual defeat by the west London side.
I agree Red card all day long, but that’s VAR for you, however I really don’t think that would have made any difference to the result, given that we played against 10 men and couldn’t score against Forest.
It’s the figures that concern me 19 shots v Forest no goals, 18 shots yesterday and again no goals, total 37 shots and no goals I believe it tells it’s own story.
Yes Mings was at fault with his fatal errors no doubt about that but surely if we had taken two or three of our clear cut chances, it would be a completely different story today.
Fulham now becomes a must win game, loose and SG is history