Bournemouth Fan View: My blood is boiling over Mings' ban

As an AFC Bournemouth fan I have gone through a range of emotions so varying over the last week it’s made my head spin.

First there was despondency on the Friday heading into a trip to Manchester United, considering our recent form and lack of defensive options – then unbridled joy after somehow nabbing a point from our visit to Old Trafford despite being down to ten men for the whole second half.

But right now I’m feeling nothing but anger, and it’s all unsurprisingly stemmed from what everyone no-one is calling The Tyrone Mings Affair.

In terms of context, the match against Manchester United on Saturday was not the tidiest – with the many controversial events that happened in the match being looked at in great detail by realms of pundits.

The primary controversial event was the incident involving Tyrone Mings though – which saw our centre back clip the back of Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s head when running back to help his teammates see off yet another Manchester United attack.

This event has been described as many things by many people. Unintentional. Deliberate. Unfortunate. Even “murderous” by certain factions.

No punishment was handed out to Mings at the time, and Ibrahimovic then seemingly took matters into his own hands (literally) by elbowing the defender in the face when leaping for a cross just a minute later. Again, no card was brandished.

In my opinion Mings did not mean to do it, but as there’s no way to prove his innocence I can still understand why his offence – and Ibrahimovic’s – were referred to a panel after Kevin Friend confirmed he did not see either incident.

It’s the subsequent punishments that have been handed out that have really made by blood boil though. Ibrahimovic has received a three match ban, yet Mings will miss five games.

When it came to the panel making its decision the fact that Ibrahimovic clearly meant his elbow – yet Mings may have not intended his ‘stamp’ – clearly meant nothing.

The fact that Ibrahimovic has committed various other dangerous acts against opponents this season – including attempting a stamp himself in the game on Saturday – clearly meant nothing.

The fact that Mings has a exemplary disciplinary record – and also knows the pain of being injured on the football pitch having torn his ACL last season – clearly meant nothing.

By the way, before you do leave that comment – no, the increased size of his ban is not because AFC Bournemouth appealed it. This a mistruth spouted eagerly by those who don’t read up on the actual facts, as before the bans were discussed the FA stated that “the standard punishment that would otherwise apply for the misconduct committed by the Bournemouth defender is ‘clearly insufficient’.”

This aforementioned statement in itself is unfair – as it means that giving Mings a standard three game ban was an option pretty much taken completely off the table.

Basically I feel as if AFC Bournemouth and Tyrone Mings have become a victim to a decision that makes no sense if approached from almost any angle.

Even looking at past examples of intentional stamps proves this. Mario Balotelli received just a four match ban for attempting to plant his foot into Scott Parker’s face back in 2012 for example – and it would have been just three if he hadn’t already been red carded that season.

I really don’t want to believe that there’s a bias in place against smaller clubs in the Premier League, but incidents like this – where decisions are seemingly made almost at random – aren’t helping prove otherwise.

If there’s ever been an event to knit together a slightly fractured AFC Bournemouth fan-base – after what has been a turbulent campaign – it’s an event like this though.

I hope we’ll come out of it stronger, but we tend do quite well when the odds are against us anyway (just see Saturday’s game as evidence of this). And they certainly are now, with Simon Francis injured and our only other centre back option to team up with Steve Cook for the next five games being 21-year-old Baily Cargill – who we only recently recalled from his loan at Gillingham.

What’s most frustrating of all is that we’ll ultimately we’ll never know whether Mings meant the stamp. I say he didn’t, but unless we hook him up to a polygraph we’ll never find out the truth – and even then…