Premier League: Match Officials Mic’d Up live

At last a straight-forward decision surely….

And Howard Webb agrees..

“Yeah, a pretty clear situation. When we’re looking at a ‘Denial Of A Goalscoring Opportunity’, we look at four elements,” he says.

“Was the play moving towards goal? What was the distance from goal? Did the attacking player have possession and control or likely to have possession of control of the ball? And what’s the location of the other defenders? Could they interject to prevent that attack?

“In this situation we see all four elements are present and therefore when the foul happens it’s denied an obvious goalscoring opportunity and therefore a red card comes in this situation. There’s a clear shirt pulled by Brownhill, but it doesn’t matter whether it’s a clear shirt pull like this one, or an attempt to play the ball that he gets wrong.

“It’s outside the area, so it always has to be a red card.

“If you move this into the penalty area, then it wouldn’t be a red card if Brownhill was making a genuine attempt to play or challenge for the ball, however, it would be a yellow card. The advantage goes back to the attacking team from the penalty spot.

“However, if it’s a cynical shirt-pulling offence like this one in the penalty area, it still has to be red.

“So this situation pretty clear, good decision by the officials.”