Hackett: Mo lucky not to be sent off
POSITION OF REF MADE DECISION TRICKY
MO Diame was lucky not to be shown a red card against Swansea believes former referees’ assessor Keith Hackett, after the Newcastle United midfielder appeared to stop a goal-bound effort with his hand.
Just after the half-hour mark the Senegalese blocked Kyle Bartley’s header but the incident was missed by referee Graham Scott - much to the anger of Swans’ boss Carlos Carvalhal.
Hackett believes Diame was only spared a red because the referee was in a poor position to see the incident clearly.
He said: “That was deliberate, his actions denied a goal, and that is a red card offence missed by the referee.
“Really, though, that is about Graham Scott failing to get a viewing angle. The difficulty for referees in that situation is players’ bodies get in the way of their line of vision.
“That is why when we are coaching referees we tell them to veer off the angle or veer off the diagonal, the reason being referees traditionally run from one corner of the penalty area diagonally to the other corner.
“All they have to do is to branch off that traditional flow path, left or right, to make certain they see those sort of incidents. “Handball is actually very simple in terms of the laws of the game. The fundamental point is very simple: always think of the word deliberate.” United had to come from behind after Jordan Ayew opened the scoring and it was Joselu who nicked the equaliser against the Premier League’s bottom side - but Carvalhal believes his side was hard done by. The former Sheffield Wednesday manager has called for the use of VAR. “I must be honest, I did not see it (penalty claim) at the time,” said Carvalhal. “I did not have a clear view but with the technology we have my assistant was able to take a look and he said it was a clear penalty and a red card for Diame but the “referee did not see it so it’s part of the game.
“Usually teams in our position have these type of decisions not go in our favour, I don’t know why.
“I think we can say with VAR it would have been a penalty and a red card.
“In 10 seconds the video referee could communicate, say to stop the game and issue a red card and give a penalty.
“It was like against Tottenham, their first goal is offside and would not be valid, the same way as our first goal at Watford because, even if it was one centimetre, my player was offside.”