Interesting discussion last night on Sky with Howard Webb about that Ndidi challenge and the view, on reflection, that he should have been sent off.
Incident: Leicester City's Wilfred Ndidi is chasing Chelsea's Cole Palmer and dives in, proceeding to catch him on the back of his legs.
What the match officials did: Referee Andy Madley awards a foul from Ndidi, to whom he shows a yellow card, believing there to be not enough intensity to merit a sending-off. The VAR checks for serious foul play and says most of the contact is on Palmer's heel and isn't sufficient for the decision to be overturned.
Owen: "Caicedo [not being a red card], I can accept that. [With Ndidi] I'm very, very surprised he's not been given a red card."
Webb: "I’d prefer a red card in this situation for a few reasons. This is a tackle from behind by Ndidi. The contact is on a pretty vulnerable part of Cole Palmer's anatomy, by the Achilles. The actual contact initially is with the instep as opposed to with the studs. He comes in and doesn't really have a great chance of winning the ball.
"He makes contact higher on the leg and then slides down. The most forceful contact, where the studs really come in, is on the heel. But still there's a lot of force. There’s contact before that on the Achilles. And when you factor all of those things in: the way he comes into the tackle, the mode of contact where it makes contact, this is much more aligned with serious foul play that endangers Cole Palmer's safety.
"Now the VAR looked at that. The referee's call was a yellow card for a reckless tackle. The VAR felt that because that contact came down quite quickly on to the heel, on to the boot, it didn't go past the threshold for being a 'clear and obvious error' and 'check-completed' the yellow card.
"We've looked at this collectively, among the officials, talked about this, and we would prefer this to be dealt with with a red card. We have to protect player safety. That contact stays on the legs for quite some time, by the way, unlike what we saw with Caicedo when it came off very quickly. So different part of the body, different type of contact, different level of danger to the opponent.
"In this case, Coach Palmer thankfully wasn't seriously injured. But these sorts of tackles need to be dealt with through a red card.
Owen: "Absolutely. Because you see the force. Both feet are off the ground. And obviously the first contact was on the Achilles tendon. So that, to me as an ex-footballer, that is a damaging tackle as opposed to the first one."
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