Joe Rothwell saw red as Middlesbrough beat Sheffield United
Joe Rothwell of Sheffield United is shown the red card(Image: Getty Images)
Former Premier League referee Keith Hackett explained why, in his opinion, the decision to send Joe Rothwell off was the right one during Middlesbrough’s win over Sheffield United.
Rothwell saw a straight red with ten minutes in the game remaining for a late challenge on Alan Browne, which co-commentator Don Goodman called a ‘horrible tackle’ during Sky Sports’ broadcast.
Thankfully Browne was quickly back to his feet and appeared unhurt after the incident. It proved costly for the home side too, who were pushing for an equaliser and had momentum in their favour after halving Boro’s two-goal lead with 15 minutes remaining.
On why he agreed with Gavin Ward that the challenge for was a red and not just a yellow, despite the frustrations of Sheffield United fans, Hackett said it went beyond reckless.
Hackett told Football Insider: “Sheffield Utd v Middlesbrough. Referee Gavin Ward (was) correct in issuing a straight red card to United’s Rothwell for serious foul play.
“The law states: Serious foul play (is) a tackle or challenge that endangers the safety of an opponent or uses excessive force or brutality, and must be sanctioned as serious foul play.
“Any player who lunges at an opponent in challenging for the ball from the front, from the side or from behind using one or both legs, with excessive force or endangers the safety of an opponent is guilty of serious foul play.“
Unusually, the two bosses agreed after that there could be no complaints too. Kim Hellberg called it a horrible tackle, but said thankfully Browne was not hurt by it.
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Sheffield United boss Chris Wilder admitted: “I don’t know whether it’s just maybe a mistimed tackle. But I’ve got no arguments with the decision.
“If you can give me like five seconds yet again about the consistency level of the referees… it’s just absolutely so poor; ridiculous for both teams. The consistency of the decisions…
“But that didn’t play a part in the result, just the general flow of the game where he was just the star of the show and wanted to break it up all the time.
“You don’t want to come and see him [the referee], you want to go and see two teams having a right go at it, which for the majority of the time that was the case.
“But Joe, maybe a bit of frustration, maybe not playing football at the early part of the season and wanted to make his mark. But it’s a mistimed tackle and yeah, I’ve got no issue with the decision off the back of that.
“He’s got his head in his hands straight away and in the changing room afterwards, and obviously that made it doubly difficult for us to build on that momentum that we obviously had.”
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