Former Premier League referee Mark Halsey has given his insight into Craig Pawson’s original decision to wrongly give Joe Willock a yellow card instead of Jeff Hendrick for Newcastle United at the weekend.
It was a case of mistaken identity as Pawson decided to originally give Willock a yellow card for the foul on a Southampton player before Hendrick was rightfully given the yellow instead, which was his second booking of the game and thus, he was subsequently sent off.
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Steve Bruce’s team managed to hold out for a 3-2 win at St. James’ Park in the end after a debut goal from Willock and a brace from Miguel Almiron were enough, despite goals from Takumi Minamino and James Ward-Prowse for the Saints.
Nonetheless, former Premier League referee Halsey gave his own insight to This Is Futbol on the case of mistaken identity:
“From what I’ve heard, VAR didn’t get involved. I think it was a combination of Southampton players and possibly the fourth official and the assistants.
“Craig Pawson should not be getting that wrong. He’s momentarily switched off and then when you switch off, that’s what happens because he’s in a fantastic position and he’s that side of Hendrick, he’s that side when he pulls him back and for that moment, he’s just switched off and shown the yellow card to Joe Willock, which as we all know is wrong and then obviously, they’ve got it right, in the end they’ve got it right but a a referee at that level, you shouldn’t really be doing that.”
Pawson should not be getting that decision wrong
As an experienced referee in the top flight, Pawson should not have gotten that decision wrong in the first place, so he might feel a bit embarrassed.
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However, the main thing is that the right decision eventually got made in the end, even if it did hinder Newcastle. Thankfully, the Tyneside club still managed to win the match anyway, despite the red card.
Still, it was worrying to see that a top-flight official could make such an error, but thankfully, he was able to rectify it pretty much straight away.
In other news, find out whose display versus the Saints was slammed by Lee Ryder here!
