Category: News

Former Premier League referee Dermot Gallagher is back to assess the controversial moments from the weekend’s action.

Chelsea 1-1 Nottingham Forest

INCIDENT: Forest’s Neco Williams pushed Marc Cucurella into Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca which sparks a melee. Williams and Cucurella are booked plus Levi Colwill.

DERMOT SAYS: “When you see that situation, you pick out what you can with your colleagues and VAR. If there’s anything left the FA will intervene afterwards.”

Everton 0-0 Newcastle

INCIDENT: VAR intervened to award Newcastle the penalty that was missed by Anthony Gordon when spotting a foul off the ball by James Tarkowski on Sandro Tonali inside the box.

DERMOT SAYS: “If you wrestle somebody to the ground like this, and the VAR spots it, you cannot unsee that as an official.”

INCIDENT: Dominic Calvert-Lewin was convinced he should’ve been awarded a penalty after a tangle with Dan Burn but referee Craig Pawson waved it away and VAR didn’t deem it an obvious error.

DERMOT SAYS: “Dan Burn has been clever, he’s put his foot across to protect the ball and Calvert-Lewin has kicked him in the back of the leg rather than the other way around.”

Aston Villa 0-0 Man Utd

INCIDENT: Marcus Rashford, already on a yellow card, fouls Leon Bailey. Should the Man Utd forward have been sent off?

DERMOT SAYS: “What saves him is Dalot, who comes and sweeps the ball up. The argument is he’s not breaking a promising attack. He gets a little bit lucky because the ball is running out.”

Crystal Palace 0-1 Liverpool

INCIDENT: Crystal Palace’s Marc Guehi is pulled back by Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk in the box. Should it have been a penalty?

DERMOT SAYS: “Two things they’ve worked on this season is that it’s got to be sustained holding and it’s got to have impact. They felt that it had no impact because it wouldn’t go to Guehi.”

Arsenal 3-1 Southampton

INCIDENT: Gabriel Martinelli scores for Arsenal but Mikel Merino, in an offside position, jumps towards the ball before it’s turned in. He is deemed not to be interfering with play. Should the goal have been ruled out?

DERMOT SAYS: “Merino can’t ever play the ball, it’s so far above him. It’s quite rightly given as a goal.”

Portsmouth 1-1 Oxford

INCIDENT: In the EFL there was a serious incident in Portsmouth’s game against Oxford. Bhupinder Singh Gill reported an alleged discriminatory comment made from the stands. Referee Lewis Smith paused the game. What is the procedure here?

Dermot says: “The first thing to say is that this is totally out of order. You can’t have this. Zero tolerance.

“Once it is reported to the referee, he goes and sees the match commander, reports it and asks for it to be identified.

“If they can identify the area, contain it, and then hopefully that will get rid of it. If it doesn’t get rid of it then you escalate it up to the point where, if it goes to be far and it can’t be sorted, you end up with the game abandoned.

“That is the last resort, which you don’t want.”

Evans rolls back the years as Man Utd hold out

“At one point I thought Gary and Phil Neville might be the full-backs,” quipped Gary Neville after hearing about the inclusion of his 36-year-old former team-mate Jonny Evans in Manchester United’s starting line-up for Sunday’s clash with Aston Villa at Villa Park.

Erik ten Hag made bold calls with his team selection, drafting in Harry Maguire as well as Evans as Matthijs de Ligt and Lisandro Martinez were dropped following the defensive horror shows against Spurs and Porto. But what followed was their best defensive display of the season in the goalless draw.

Neville was eager to stress that it seemed a desperate move ahead of kick-off. “This is not the plan,” said the Sky Sports pundit. “The plan this season was for Erik ten Hag to establish his style of play, shift them up the pitch and make them more aggressive.”

But the changes did at least have the desired effect in the short term. Maguire was forced off at half-time due to injury but Evans battled through the 90 minutes as United’s best player, earning the player-of-the-match award in a performance which belied his age.

Villa had won a third consecutive home game with their Champions League victory over Bayern Munich in midweek but United limited them to 11 shots worth a meagre 0.42 expected goals and Evans was key, winning 11 out of 12 duels and all five of his aerials.

Ollie Watkins had the beating of him in terms of pace, but the Aston Villa striker did not get a chance to use it, such was the intelligence of Evans’ positioning. This was hardly a corner turned for United. But Evans helped give Ten Hag what he needed on the day.
Nick Wright

Villa squad stretched already as Konsa the latest to fall

Worryingly for Aston Villa and Unai Emery, his side look tired already – and you cannot blame them. Villa gave absolutely everything to beat Bayern Munich in midweek and lost both Amadou Onana and Jacob Ramsey to injury while doing so.

Leon Bailey, who is not fully fit himself, started the game against United and put in a solid shift – but it highlights how stretched Emery’s squad already is.

On top of this, England international Ezri Konsa was forced off in the first half and looked a frustrated character on the bench as the 0-0 draw played out.

The attacking display against United looked tired and laborious at times. Crosses failing to beat the first man, players unaware of their surroundings and ultimately a lack of threat throughout.

The international break has possibly arrived at the perfect time for Villa. They need a pause in play and an opportunity to get some players, such as Boubacar Kamara and Tyrone Mings, back into the first-team picture to offer some well-needed support moving forward.

“We don’t have those players [to bring on] as they are injured,” Emery said after the game when asked about the lack of depth, where he also highlighted the absence of captain John McGinn, who has missed the last four games.

The draw against United now makes it eight games without defeat for Villa – but how long they can carry this on with the volume of games and the current injury problems sweeping the squad, remains to be seen.
Patrick Rowe

Nuno produces another away defensive masterclass

This was not exactly the perfect time to be facing Chelsea for Nottingham Forest. Enzo Maresca was eyeing a sixth straight win in all competitions, but in the end the Italian was grateful in some respects for a point from the 1-1 draw despite playing the final 25 minutes, including stoppages, against 10 players.

Were it not for Robert Sanchez’s heroics, Forest would have claimed back-to-back league wins at Stamford Bridge for the first time since January 1908.

They remain unbeaten on the road and, after seven games, no side has a better away defensive record than Nuno Espirito Santo’s team – something he puts down to hard work.

“Since last season, our commitment has been to improve in this aspect,” he said. “You cannot play in the Premier League if you are not solid and compact and strong in defence. They’re doing well in that aspect through hard work and resilience. We have to continue, and we cannot ever ignore the quality of our opponents and the fact that we have to defend.”

Espirito Santo joined his coaching staff in a huddle after Chris Wood’s opener – a celebration of a set-piece routine honed on the training ground coming to fruition. Nothing is left to chance.

The way in which Forest absorbed Chelsea’s late bombardment will have pleased the Portuguese just as much as the fighting spirit shown during the second-half fracas that sparked the dramatic denouement.

To see talisman Morgan Gibbs-White hobble off with an ankle injury and then go down to 10 players following James Ward-Prowse’s sending off only to very nearly come away with all three points underlines Forest’s progress as an upwardly-mobile outfit. To the Premier League’s established order, they are becoming a scalp.

After defeating Liverpool, the circumstances made this point every bit as impressive.
Ben Grounds

Chelsea’s disciplinary issue should concern Maresca

Maresca is trying to take Chelsea to the top of the Premier League, but the Blues lead the standings in one category – and it is not a positive one.

The Blues have now picked up 27 yellow cards, more than any other top-flight team. The draw with Nottingham Forest was the second time this season Chelsea have met the yellow-card threshold of six – which warrants a £25,000 fine.

But more worryingly, it leaves Chelsea with some holes in defence. Wesley Fofana and Marc Cucurella picked up their fifth bookings of the season which means a weakened Blues backline will head to Liverpool on October 20, live on Sky Sports.

Missing the impressive Cucurella is a concern, with Renato Veiga or potentially even Ben Chilwell now needing to step up to stop a rampant Mohamed Salah. Meanwhile, Nicolas Jackson and Cole Palmer are now both on three yellow cards. Missing those two players for any game would be a concern given how reliant Chelsea have been on them for attacking output this season.

Maresca says he is not concerned by Chelsea’s yellow cards. His goalkeeper Robert Sanchez starting this season brilliantly and lessening the defensive blow helps his case. But the Chelsea manager must be wary of this disciplinary issue at the club, as it could come back to haunt them.
Sam Blitz

Solanke proving his worth but Spurs fail to capitalise

Ange Postecoglou blamed Tottenham’s incredible collapse at Brighton on a lack of application rather than anything that tactically changed in the second half. That is hard to argue against, yet what was glaring obvious after the break was how little of the ball Spurs managed to get into Dominic Solanke. The striker was excellent for 45 minutes, playing a huge role in both goals and offering Spurs an option to set their attacks from.

Despite his influence, Solanke only had 20 touches of the ball in the entire game, the fewest of any player that started the game across both teams. Spurs should have utilised him more, especially in the second half where he was anonymous as Tottenham failed miserably at chasing the game when 3-2 behind.

Former Spurs striker Les Ferdinand was left perplexed about the lack of service Solanke got, he said: “In the first half Spurs always had the out-ball with Solanke – they never used him in the second half. He never got the chance to hold it up and bring people in. He hardly touched the ball, through no fault of his own.”

Brighton’s key player, Kaoru Mitoma, had 51 touches. Play to your strengths they say. That proved the difference between the teams.
Lewis Jones

Nottingham Forest withstood a late Chelsea onslaught with 10 players to gain a priceless Premier League point in a 1-1 draw on a pulsating afternoon in London.

A goalless first half gave way to a frenetic second as Chris Wood met Nikola Milenkovic’s downward header from a James Ward-Prowse free-kick to give Forest the lead four minutes after the restart.

Chelsea responded emphatically as Noni Madueke collected Cole Palmer’s pass to drift inside and find the bottom corner to restore parity (57).

Ward-Prowse’s cynical handball to prevent a goalscoring opportunity deservedly led to him being sent off for the second time in his career at Stamford Bridge (78).

Chelsea probed for a winner as Palmer was denied quite brilliantly by a Matz Sels double save before both benches almost came to blows following a tangle between Marc Cucurella and Neco Williams which saw Enzo Maresca tumble on the touchline.

Virtually all 22 players plus substitutes were involved in the disorder. Forest dug deep through 13 added minutes and a glaring miss from Joao Felix to snatch a point their performance deserved.

Williams might have even scored a late winner himself when he stung the gloves of Robert Sanchez before Sels kept out Christopher Nkunku’s header from Mykhailo Mudryk’s cross.

The result means Chelsea remain in fourth on 14 points with Forest four points behind and stationed in 10th heading into the international break. For the second time this season the hosts were shown six yellow cards meaning they will likely face a fine.

“I think the team is fighting all together,” said Maresca. “I don’t think some of them lost their heads, I think they were all of them in the game, so I was happy with that.

Asked whether he feared his team had a discipline problem, he replied: “No. It’s something probably we need to improve, but overall I like the team the way they are fighting, the way they are becoming a team in these kind of things. I don’t see any problem about that.

“Now we have the international break, we have time to see how we can organise.”

How Forest went toe-to-toe with Chelsea

Brighton played with a very high line last week and Chelsea took full advantage – but Nottingham Forest sat much deeper and those gaps rarely appeared during a cagey first half.

It took until the 42nd minute for the hosts to have their first shot on target as Enzo Fernandez drew a routine save from Sels after Madueke’s shot across goal was parried into his path.

Murillo had gone closest to breaking the deadlock at that stage after intercepting a Fernandez pass to draw a smart save from Sanchez.

Both sides threatened to find the opener on the stroke of half-time as Madueke’s cutback was met by Palmer but his effort through a sea of bodies eventually struck the post before being clawed to safety on the goal line by Sels.

Forest were by no means overawed by their in-form opponents – and following the two quickfire second-half goals, it was they who threatened a winner just as much as Chelsea in spite of Ward-Prowse’s mindless sending off.

The touchline fracas lit the blue touch paper for a Sunday slugfest in the closing stages. Colwill and Williams came to blows in the aftermath of Cucurella tumbling into his manager Maresca as tensions boiled over.

Palmer’s deft touch presented him with the chance to score but Sels was twice equal to his efforts. Then it was Sanchez’s turn to justify his No 1 status with a sublime save to claw away Williams’ drive – and he was again called into action when Jota Silva met Ola Aina’s cross to drag the ball away from almost behind him.

Espirito Santo said: “It was a very good game of football. The type of game that everybody enjoys, that’s for sure. It’s positive as it’s always very hard to come here and play. It’s a big team effort and the players did that.

“We had good possession in the first half and the second half was a crazy game with both goalkeepers making huge saves. We had one man less, there was mass confusion, yellow cards. It had everything. Both teams [could have won it].”

Player of the match – Matz Sels

Nottingham Forest striker Chris Wood:

“We had chances to win it. I think we nullified them to a lot of things. Matz Sels was unbelievable in goal, made some great saves, kept us in the game and gave us the chance to win the game. That’s what we’re about, fighting to win.

“We know they’re a good side, coming to the Bridge will always be a tough occasion. It shows the resilience we’re trying to deliver and we want to continue and go bigger in the future and rise up the table. We want to be competing in the top half of the table and beyond. We take the positives and move on.

“It’s always nice to be scoring the goals. It was nice to give us the lead, it would be nice to be three points rather than one.

“We want to bring these results to the City Ground, but it’s nothing to panic about. we’re playing good football and doing extremely well and it will click at home, there’s no doubt about it.”

Could Jackson face retrospective action?

During the fracas, which broke out in the 88th minute in front of the Chelsea dugout, Nicolas Jackson appeared to raise his hand to the face of a Forest player, an incident that was not spotted either by the on-field referee or VAR but could yet see action brought against the striker retrospectively.

Jackson was not on the pitch, having been substituted in the 81st minute.

“In that moment not only Nicholas was inside the pitch,” said Maresca in the player’s defence. “If you look there were more players from the bench inside the pitch.

“If you ask if I prefer when something like that happens, players from outside are involved or not, I like the spirit of the team. I don’t see any problem.

“There are things we can control and do better and probably this is one of the things. But if you ask me about the team spirit, the way they are fighting together, the way they are doing things together, I’m very happy.”

Nuno’s fine away record – Opta stats

• James Ward-Prowse’s red card for Nottingham Forest was his third in the Premier League in 385 matches, with two of those three red cards coming against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge – October 2021 & today.
• 10 of Chris Wood’s last 14 goals for Nottingham Forest in the Premier League have been scored away from home (71.4 per cent), this comes after all of his first five goals for the club in the competition were scored at home.
• Only Bryan Roy (24) and Stan Collymore (22) have scored more Premier League goals for Nottingham Forest than Chris Wood (19), while Wood’s 10 away goals in the competition is the joint-most of any player for the Tricky Trees along with Bryan Roy (10).
• Chelsea’s Cole Palmer created 6 chances against Nottingham Forest, only creating more in the Premier League on one previous occasion – 8 v Manchester United in April 2024. This is the fifth time that Palmer has created 5+ chances in a Premier League match.

Story of the match in stats…

What’s coming up in the Premier League?

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Paul Gilmour is joined by Sky Sports’ Dan Long as they reflect on Chelsea’s victory over Gent in the Europa Conference League and whether or not Enzo Maresca has what it takes to bring Chelsea back to their title challenging days.

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