Howard Webb breaks silence on Jhon Duran's controversial red card against Newcastle
PGMOL chief Howard Webb has spoken out about the red card which Jhon Duran received against Newcastle United for the first time.
The Villa striker was sent off by Anthony Taylor after being adjudged to have deliberately stamped on Fabian Schar following a tackle from the Newcastle defender. After an unsuccessful appeal from Villa, Duran was banned for three games for violent conduct.
In the latest edition of Match Officials Mic'd Up, Webb took a look at the incident, including the match audio from the officials involved and said: "You can hear on the comms a range of opinions. The fourth official makes a comment based on what he's seen, the assistant referee suggests it might be a yellow card. But the best placed match official by a long way is the referee, who is right behind the situation.
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"He sees Fabian Schar make that clean tackle - and then Duran takes a few steps and then moves his right leg across from right to left and onto the back of Schar, who is on the floor. He deemed that to be a deliberate action by Duran and one of violent conduct.
"It's always hard to read players' minds, you have to judge the actions that we see, the physical evidence to make our judgements. And in this situation, the referee saw the action, felt it was a red card offence.
"And the VAR saw the movement of that leg onto the back of Schar and didn't feel that the on-field referee's call was obviously wrong - he probably agreed with it - and it stayed as an on-field call as a red card."
Former Premier League striker Michael Owen then questions whether Duran becoming unbalanced should have affected the referee's thinking.
"You need a level of certainty to send a player off, the referee had that," Webb responded. "He's got a great view of that, he would have seen a dynamic motion when the two players are going through and challenging for the ball.
"Then he sees to him, what he felt was the right leg coming from out to in, going somewhere else, it could have continued going past the player or to the left or right of the player.
"But the referee felt the action of the right leg coming down on the back of the opponent's back was violent conduct and he sent him off. It was always going to be check complete once that referee's call had been given as a red card for violent conduct."
