When Is A Yellow Card Not A Yellow Card?

It looked for all the world that Villa would be playing with reduced numbers when he bought down the Swansea wide man having been booked for a similar challenge in the first half. But the referee chose to just have a strong word with the player and he was left to fight another day – or at least another challenge.

What is of course potential poetic justice was the fact that the Swans scored from the resulting free kick when Fernandez bundled home but that does not take anything away from Dean’s decision not to show a second yellow.

It is not a decision that stands Dean alone though as all too often you see a referee decide not to show a yellow card when it means that a red will have to follow but you do have to question whether this should be the case.

The laws of the game will always suggest that a bookable offence is a bookable offence and therefore it should make no difference whether the player has been booked beforehand or not. I do get – and understand – the argument that you do not always want to see 11v10 in a game but surely that is the point of the system the way that it is in that it is supposed to act as a deterrent from another foul.

Or has it become a case that you get a yellow card and then you are almost given a free foul because of it. Of course not and thus lies another one of the problems that we have in the current game in the consistency of referees.

For me though the decision was a simple one and Cissokho should have gone for the foul Barrow although ultimately it made no difference to the outcome.

https://twitter.com/NICKDINEEN/status/711594502524440578

@swansnews I thought he done well. Should have sent their player off though for being mo down for the second time

— kristian dowd (@kdowdy18) March 20, 2016

@swansnews I thought he done well. Should have sent their player off though for being mo down for the second time

— kristian dowd (@kdowdy18) March 20, 2016

@swansnews not sending off Cissokho was a joke – would love to hear his reasoning for that

— 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 Matt Griffiths (@mgphotomad) March 20, 2016

@swansnews He loves us…. Think I saw a stat somewhere saying that with him as ref our record was like W4D6L9 or something to that effect

— Jackson (@Jackson_SCFC) March 20, 2016

<#avfc>