The PGMOL have admitted they should have shown a red card to Manchester City during the team’s recent win over Nottingham Forest.
Manchester City have been in a patch of poor form lately, drawing their last three games in a row to drop behind Arsenal in the title race.
City’s last win game against Nottingham Forest on December 27th, but they were arguably handed an unfair advantage on that occasion as multiple big decisions went their way.
Forest boss Sean Dyche was particularly incensed by the decisions not to send off Ruben Dias for a second yellow card, and to allow City’s winning goal despite a potential foul on Morgan Gibbs-White.
Forest complained to the PGMOL about the two incidents, and Sky Sports report that the club held a meeting this week to analyse the decisions.
The PGMOL stood by their decision to allow City’s winner, arguing that there was no foul on Gibbs-White. Forest ultimately accepted that point of view.
Yet the refereeing organisation admitted they made a mistake with the second yellow card for Dias, accepting that the foul was worthy of a booking. VAR can’t intervene in the case of a second yellow, so once the decision had been made by on-field referee Rob Jones, it had to stand.
Given Dias’ foul was in the first minute of the second half, there’s certainly an argument that City might have dropped points if they’d had to play the other 44 minutes with 10 men. Pep Guardiola’s side got away with one there.
On the other hand, perhaps if Dias had been suspended and rested for City’s next game against Sunderland, he wouldn’t then have suffered a serious hamstring injury in the following game against Chelsea.
So whilst City fans can be grateful for the three points they picked up against Forest, there could be some negative longer-term consequences to the officiating error as well.