Raheem Sterling was lucky not to be sent off for his studs-up challenge on Dele Alli in the first half of Sunday’s game at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
That’s not the opinion of a biased Spurs blogger. It is according to journalists from NBC, BT Sport and the London Evening Standard.
Sterling caught Alli’s ankle with a raised boot and referee Mike Dean punished the Manchester City forward with a yellow card.
Then came a VAR delay as the Stockly Park nerds pondered a possible red, before futher-inflating Dean’s ego by sticking with his original call.
One suspects that had Dean gone for red, VAR would have stuck with that decision too. But hey, consistency is overrated. Like a two-bob pundit such as Danny Mils would probably say: “What would football fans do if they didn’t have these refereeing decisions to discuss down the pub?”
But football fans don’t go to the pub nowadays anyway. We all live on Twitter alongside 14-year-old trolls and proper journalists (not like me).
And three of said journalists – Ian Darke (BT Sport), Rob Dauster (NBC) and James Olley (London Evening Standard) – reckon Sterling got away with one.
So there!
YIDZ