Mathieu Flamini is a lucky boy. His selection on Sunday came as a surprise to most fans, but it’s an even bigger surprise that he finished the game.

With under 10 minutes on the clock, Dan Gosling had a fairly loose touch and the ball was there to be one. Something possessed Flamini to leave the ground and lunge into a two-footed challenge.

He won the ball, but the tackle was one which has been eradicated from the game and it could’ve ended in a serious injury. Only booked for his moment of madness, Flamini got away with it, but everyone but Kevin Friend thought he should’ve been sent off.

“I thought it was a red, I had a very good view it looked like it was two-footed, potentially off the floor. I’ve only seen it live but my initial view was that it was a red card,” Bournemouth boss Eddie Howe said to Sky after the match.

“For me it wasn’t a difficult decision, the two-footed tackle has been outlawed and I thought it was a red card.”

On punditry duty for Sky, Graeme Souness and Thierry Henry were much more blunt about it at half-time.

“He has to go, he’s reckless, he’s off the ground, the referee sees it. You see the reaction of the Bournemouth players,” Souness said. “In the modern game there are no grey areas, send him off. How he sees that is beyond me, that is a sending off. I don’t care how you win (the ball). He could easily have broken his leg.”

Arsenal legend Thierry Henry was quick to agree:

“It is a red, if Gosling really goes into the challenge I think he would’ve been in trouble.”

Flamini agreed with Friend’s decision to only brandish a yellow card (of course he did) but you’d be hard pressed to find anyone else to agree with him.