Ashley Williams voiced his bewilderment that Rodri wasn’t sent off during the first half of Manchester City’s game against Liverpool.
In the 33rd minute of today’s Premier League clash at the Etihad Stadium, the 26-year-old was shown a yellow card for pulling back Diogo Jota.
In that circumstance, you’d expect a player to toe the line, but barely a minute later the Spain midfielder unceremoniously bundled Cody Gakpo to the ground, with several Reds players making the point to referee Simon Hooper that the incident merited a booking.
The official was unmoved, and Williams – a boyhood Liverpool supporter – was left baffled by the refusal to punish Rodri further.
The former Everton and Wales defender said on BBC Radio 5 Live: “As a fan watching this game, that’s a yellow card, all day long that’s a second yellow card. It’s a confusing one for me. How many of them do you see that get a yellow card?”
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Williams is exactly right to ask why the Manchester City midfielder wasn’t shown a second yellow card for taking out Gakpo.
Irrespective of whether or not he’d just been booked, the incident merited more than just the mere awarding of a foul from Hooper.
Had the referee deemed it a second bookable offence and Rodri been sent off at 1-1, leaving the home side with more than half of the game to contend with being a man down, the subsequent 55 minutes or so could’ve taken on a rather different complexion.
City were evidently the better of the two teams on the day, as the sobering final scoreline shows, although one can’t help but wonder if they’d have had a tougher afternoon of it if they’d been reduced to 10 men when they ought to have been.