Graham Barber had no doubts about the red card that reduced Crystal Palace to 10 men inside the first quarter of an hour at Tottenham on Saturday.
The former Premier League referee publicly backed Michael Oliver’s upgraded punishment of Jean-Philippe Mateta, telling GiveMeSport that VAR had got the call right.
“I think it was the right decision,” Barber said.
He could not fathom why Mateta had chosen that moment, and that patch of the pitch, to go through the back of the Tottenham defender.
Read also: Russia is back at the Olympics
“Thirteen minutes into the game, in a pretty innocuous position on the field of play, no danger at all, and then you launch yourself into the back of a defender for no reason at all,” Barber told the outlet.
Barber called the challenge plainly dangerous and said it had put Micky van de Ven’s safety at risk. He also drew a sharp line between Mateta’s lunge and a separate incident reviewed on the same programme, Liverpool youngster Trey Nyoni’s foul on Arsenal’s Martin Odegaard.
A yellow turned red
Oliver initially cautioned Mateta before being summoned to the pitchside monitor and upgrading the punishment to a straight red for serious foul play. The striker had slid in on Van de Ven while chasing a ball over the halfway line, running his studs down the back of Van de Ven’s Achilles, according to Sky Sports.
Spurs made the numerical advantage count. Archie Gray broke the deadlock in the 25th minute and Jan Paul van Hecke added a second after the interval, Sky added, as Roberto De Zerbi’s side strung together a third consecutive league win.
Read also: Florian Wirtz makes Chelsea transfer decision as Xabi Alonso pushes for reunion
Palace drop into the relegation zone
The result dropped Pierre Sage’s Crystal Palace into the Premier League relegation zone, Sky reported, and the Palace head coach made no attempt to spin the position.
“I’m not comfortable with the situation on the table, but it’s a consequence of what we did badly,” Sage told reporters, per Sky.
Mateta now faces a three-match domestic suspension that rules him out of Palace’s next three league fixtures, according to YSscores.
Read also: Luka drops 131 on Raptors: How do you stop Doncic’s Lakers?
