Nottingham Forest were beaten 3-1 by Tottenham on Sunday as the Reds remained in relegation trouble in the Premier League.
There was an incident involving Ryan Yates and James Maddison in the first half. Now, a former referee has explained what he was told about the flash point.
Forest tried hard at Tottenham. Chris Wood equalised for the Reds after a Murillo own goal and then proceeded to miss an absolute sitter, with the striker critiqued by Gary Lineker.
Still, it wasn’t to be forForest on the day. Tottenham came out of the traps quickly in the second half and goals from Micky van de Ven and Pedro Porro wrapped up the win for them.
Ultimately, it was one of those games where Forest might feel they could have done more in. The second half was pretty underwhelming and hopefully, the Reds can learn from their performance.
One big incident came in the first half against Tottenham and it involved Yates and Maddison. The Tottenham man appeared to strike the Forest captain in the stomach – yet bizarrely VAR turned a blind eye to it.
Dermot Gallagher shares what he heard VAR say after Forest incident
The VAR for Sunday’s game was Michael Salisbury. It’s not the first time that he’s been involved with controversy this season either. He failed to award Wolves a stonewall penalty against Manchester United.
On this occasion, he got another decision badly wrong and it impacted Forest. Maddison appeared to strike Yates in the stomach; yet somehow he managed to get away with it and wasn’t even cautioned for the act.
Gallagher was listening to the VAR at the time during the first half of this Forest game. Now, he’s shared what Salisbury was quoted as saying whilst checking the decision for referee Simon Hooper.
He said on Sky Sports News: “This was really interesting because this got flagged up by VAR. I listened to the VAR and I saw this whilst I was waiting for the VAR (Yates gesturing for VAR). Someone pointed out to me that he’d already got a yellow card and that this was going to be a very interesting decision.
“The VAR came to the conclusion, his words and I quote him on this on the day and that was that there was no evidence of violent conduct. That’s his choice. The referee has no choice. He’s directed by the VAR and if he says there is no evidence, he can’t see it again.
“All I can say is what he said. He feels there is no evidence of violent conduct. I think he’s really lucky. If you do that on a football field and you get sent off you haven’t got a leg to stand on.”
Forest must now regain focus
There isn’t a great deal of shame in losing a game away at Tottenham. Okay, it would have been nice had Forest managed to get something but it’s hardly going to be season-defining.
The Reds will now have to regroup. Big games are coming up against Wolves at the City Ground and Everton away from home.
The footage is pretty conclusive that Maddison should have been sent off for lashing out at Yates and who knows what might have happened.
However, there is nothing that Forest can do now. Ultimately the team must prepare properly this week for two massive games against teams that they will believe they can beat.
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