Newcastle United beat Fulham on Saturday, and were boosted with the visitors going down to 10 men.
Raul Jimenez was given a red card in the first half for a challenge on Sean Longstaff, despite initially only receiving a yellow.
However, the referee Samuel Barrott was instructed by VAR to have another look, and decided to upgrade it from a yellow to a red card. After 22 minutes, Jimenez’s afternoon was already over.
From that moment on it was an incredibly difficult game for Fulham. Once Newcastle got the opening goal through Lewis Miley, the floodgates opened.
In the end, it was a convincing 3-0 win for Eddie Howe’s side, with Miguel Almiron and Dan Burn also scoring. It could have been more than three, with Callum Wilson striking the post late on.
It was a comfortable victory for Newcastle, made all the more routine by Jimenez seeing red. It looked like a sending off in real time, with the forward jumping into Longstaff and crashing into his head with his hip. That tells you how out of control he was.
But Fulham boss Marco Silva was not happy with the decision, and neither is BBC Sport pundit Garth Crooks.
Garth Crooks not happy with red card decision during Newcastle vs Fulham
After naming Lewis Miley in his team of the week for the BBC website, Crooks gave his thoughts on the red card that Fulham received on Saturday.
“Fulham, on the other hand, suffered from a referee with a shocking attack of playing to the St James’ Park crowd,” he said.
“Raul Jimenez’s challenge that led to his red card was an embarrassing striker’s challenge but nothing more.”
Idiotic challenge from Raul Jimenez on Sean Longstaff
Crooks believes that the decision to change it from a yellow to a red for Jimenez was influenced by the fans, which seems hard to believe. We have seen plenty of bad decisions go against us, just like every club.
It was a really strange incident, and one that Jimenez will have replayed in his head over and over again ever since he left the St James’ Park pitch.
What he did was massively clumsy, and as soon as the referee was told to have a look at the screen by VAR, you knew it was going to be a red.
Personally, I think a yellow would have been sufficient. For me, it was what they call ‘an orange’.
But it was no surprise to see it become a red after watching the replays. It truly was idiotic from a striker who was in fine form going into the game.
He cost his side on Saturday, as Fulham really were causing us problems before they went down to 10 men.
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