Four vital reasons why both referees were in the wrong

By Graham Poll for the Daily Mail
Updated: 18:00 EST, 4 December 2011

Confusion reigns over the denial of an obvious opportunity to score a goal after this weekend saw one player sent off who should not have been and one left on who should have been dismissed.

The law is clear and simple; a player must be sent off if he denies an obvious goalscoring opportunity to an opponent moving towards goal, by an offence punishable by a free-kick or a penalty. There is no mention of ‘last man’ or a player’s ability.

Seeing red: Stuart Attwell sends off Gary Cahill when a yellow would have sufficed

In law application advice, referees are asked to consider four things:

1.  The distance between the offence and the goal.
2.  The direction of the play.
3.  The likelihood of the player keeping or gaining control of the ball
4.  The location and number of defenders.

At St James’ Park after just four minutes, Newcastle striker Demba Ba was moving towards his opponents’ goal and about to take possession of a great through-ball on the edge of the penalty area for an obvious scoring opportunity when he was fouled by Chelsea defender David Luiz.

Everyone expected a red card but Mike Dean pulled out the yellow. From his angle he thought the ball was running through to the Chelsea keeper, Petr Cech.

He was wrong and accepts that.

Yellow escape: Mike Dean cautions David Luiz when the defender should have seen red

At White Hart Lane, the opposite appeared to happen after just 18 minutes of Tottenham’s game against Bolton. Rearmost Bolton defender Gary Cahill was dispossessed by Scott Parker just over the halfway line.

Cahill reacted by impeding Parker as the Tottenham midfielder raced clear; it was definitely a foul.

However, Parker was not heading towards goal, he was 45 yards from Bolton’s goal-line and, with luck, he might have had the possibility of scoring; it was not an obvious chance to score.

Referee Stuart Attwell thought differently, and wrongly dismissed Cahill.

The incidents were very different and demonstrated the law perfectly; the referees got both wrong but one is a good referee who made a mistake and the other is still to prove he’s good enough at the top level.

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