Chelsea’s Reece James escaped certain yellow card against Leeds United – Keith Hackett
Former PGMOL boss Keith Hackett believes Anthony Taylor failed to give Chelsea’s Reece James a clear booking against Leeds United.
In the second half of the 3-0 loss to the European champions at Elland Road on Wednesday night (11 May) the referee blew for a Whites free kick against the English right-back.
He then picked the ball up, carried it with him as he back-pedalled, then threw it away before remonstrating with Taylor who decided not to book him, and Hackett says was clearly the wrong decision.
Replying to a question on Twitter about the incident that suggested James deserved a yellow card the former Premier League official wrote: “You are spot on this was a carry over several yards and had to receive a caution for delaying the restarts”.
Yorkshire Evening Post reporter Graham Smyth had been infuriated with the incident at the time, writing on his own Twitter account during the game: “Reece James refuses to give the ball back after giving away a free-kick, ignores Taylor’s instructions to give it back as he runs away and then tosses it in the other direction.
“A booking all day long but the card stays in the pocket. Weak.”
Frustrated
It was another bad day at the office for this United team and the failure to card James was just another added irritation.
There had been upset that Taylor had sent off Dan James for his early clash with Mateo Kovacic, but despite the Welsh winger getting the ball first, the height and force with which he subsequently made contact with the Croatian’s ankle made it an unavoidable red.
While much of the fury was directed at the opponents and the official, there has to be a fair amount of frustration at the Whites themselves.
The fans have been famously behind the struggling players throughout this relegation battle, but two consecutive matches where an early deficit has been compounded by a mindless tackle putting the team down to 10 men has increased the worry massively.
Whenever it rains it pours, and yet more injuries have occurred at the same time, so where it would require every other bit of luck going in the team’s favour it is of course inevitable that small things like the James yellow didn’t happen.
Jesse Marsch has to find something special to turn this around with so little time left to come up with an answer.
In other Leeds United news, Jeff Stelling has predicted the result of the game against Brighton but his Sky Sports colleague disagrees.