The blatant red card Millwall should have had against Sunderland that no one seems to be talking about

Gary Rowett has criticised the referee, but Millwall really got away with one against Sunderland.

Michael Graham | Feb 5, 2023

The blatant red card Millwall should have had against Sunderland that no one seems to be talking about /

It’s very difficult to watch Sunderland, or football in general, nowadays without an accompanying debate about what constitutes foul play.

Just about every week there is something to discuss. Sometimes, that discussion is about a decision that was punished with a red card, such as Elliot Embleton’s at Hull and Luke O’Nien’s against Swansea.

More often than not, though, it’s about decisions that were not given.

The game between Millwall and Sunderland was an especially physical affair and both managers have had things to say about the referee.

Millwall boss Gary Rowett was furious that his side had a goal disallowed and were not awarded a penalty in the first half for an alleged foul by Aji Alese on Tom Bradshaw. On one Millwall forum, fans were angry that they didn’t get a penalty for Anthony Patterson ‘wiping out’ Duncan Watmore in one piece of especially fine second-half goalkeeping.

Tony Mowbray, meanwhile, credited the referee for waving away the many dives in the penalty box by Millwall captain Jake Cooper. Perhaps the debate should have been about why he was not carded for at least one of them though – particularly since any one of them would have seen him sent off as he was booked for dissent too.

However, the most blatant piece of foul-play is seemingly not being talked about at all: George Long’s punch to Dennis Cirkin.

Long was definitely going for the ball and attempting to punch it clear, and no one is disputing that. Maybe some would say that since Cirkin scored, Millwall were punished enough.

That said, was the incident really any different to a defender challenging for the ball, being fractionally late, and taking out the man in instead? We see red cards given for that literally every week.

According to the FA laws of the game: “Playing in a dangerous manner is any action that, while trying to play the ball, threatens injury to someone (including the player themselves) and includes preventing a nearby opponent from playing the ball for fear of injury.”

Long was trying to play the ball, yet the fact he instead punched an opponent in the face, knocked him clean out and left him with a concussion, it’s really not disputable that he was playing in a dangerous manner.

The fact he is a goalkeeper shouldn’t mean anything. Players are not allowed to put their feet where it endangers someone’s head, so a goalkeeper shouldn’t be allowed to do it with their fists too. The ball was at head-height, as the images proved.

Similarly, how often have we seen a player jump for the ball to try and contest a header, lead with an arm and be sent off for it? Countless.

Hopefully Dennis Cirkin as okay. He will miss at least one game due to concussion protocol, but the potential is there for it to be much worse than that.

Either way, it’s pretty disgraceful that Long was not punished for the incident. After all, plenty of outfield players are red carded for honest attempts to get the ball every week.

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