Nottingham Forest lost 3-1 to Tottenham yesterday and there was a pretty unsavoury flashpoint between Ryan Yates and James Maddison that has proved a hot topic of discussion.
The Reds were level at 1-1 at the time of the incident. Chris Wood had scored an equaliser following a Murillo own goal and then the striker missed a glorious chance to stick Forest into the lead.
Forest ultimately succumbed to defeat following a decent second-half performance by Tottenham. Goals from Micky van de Ven and Pedro Porro gave Ange Postecoglou’s team the three points and edged them into the top four.
The Reds did at least show a little bit of fight during the clash. Not quite as much as Maddison, however, with the Tottenham man appearing to show some real misconduct towards Forest star Yates in the first half.
Mark Halsey delivers verdict on Ryan Yates and James Maddison flashpoint during Forest clash
Well, it’s not the first time this season that Forest have been on the wrong end of a decision from a match official. The Reds were once again stung yesterday – and ex-Premier League referee Halsey thinks the club have every right to be aggrieved.
Maddison appeared to be spotted throwing a fist into the stomach of Forest star Yates in the first half. It looked for all the world as though referee Simon Hooper would be sent to the VAR monitor but the call never came from Michael Salisbury.
Halsey believes that it was another error that hasn’t benefitted Forest and he’s now suggested that Tottenham star Maddison should have been shown his marching orders.
He told TalkSPORT: “Yeah listen, an act of violent conduct should be sanctioned with a red card. When there is an act of violent conduct, it needs to be sanctioned. I felt he was very fortunate not to see red for that. If you look at his fist it’s closed, isn’t it? It’s a violent act.”
Forest will likely receive another apology today – and it simply won’t do
If Forest are relegated this season, it will be down to a number of factors. One of those will be the number of horrendous refereeing decisions that Forest have found themselves on the wrong end of this season.
This one, in fairness, might not have made a difference on the game. Forest were pretty average in the second half, however, if they’d had the chance to play against 10 men for 45 minutes, things could have been different in hindsight.
Howard Webb probably has a file saved on his laptop titled ‘Nottingham Forest apology document’. He will need to fire up that one again this morning and perhaps Mark Clattenburg will have some words for his former colleague.
Forest must quickly park this result. The performance wasn’t too bad and ultimately, the Reds don’t have time to dwell on this latest defeat and must now refocus on the next match and look forward to another chance to claim three points.
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