Fernandinho escaped red card because of his good reputation
Martin Atkinson had a fine game at Anfield, with real maturity and experience in his decision-making – with one exception. I felt Manchester City midfielder Fernandinho should have received a straight red card for a forearm smash on Sadio Mane midway through the second half. To my mind it was a classic example of a player’s reputation getting them out of a potentially tricky situation.
Simply put, the Brazilian does not have a reputation as a dirty player. He makes the occasional foul, obviously, but he is rarely involved in incidents of violent conduct and always behaves in a polite and respectful manner towards officials. That does make a difference when it comes to these types of incidents.
I do not think Martin saw the incident clearly. If he had, I am sure he would have sent Fernandinho off. But the fact it was Fernandinho means he may not have looked quite as closely as he might have done if it were a player with a reputation as a nasty piece of work.
I will give you an example from my days as a top-flight referee of how reputations can distort your thinking. I took charge of Wimbledon on a regular basis and it will not surprise anyone to know that I kept a very close eye on Vinnie Jones at all times.
But what I realised after quite a few matches was that it was not Jones, but the rather eloquent and polite pair of Lawrie Sanchez and John Fashanu who were capable of just as much ill-discipline and, on occasion, violence. The fact that referees focused so much on Jones meant they could get away with more – and they often did so.
Now, I am not in any way suggesting that Fernandinho is in the same league of bad behaviour as anyone from the “Crazy Gang”, but I do think this was an occasion where his reputation helped him out after what was a violent act that I felt merited a red card. I will be interested to see whether the Football Association agrees and charges him retrospectively.
Aside from that incident, I thought Martin was exemplary. He is a very calm referee, one who takes his time over decisions and communicates clearly and with excellent use of body language.
You saw that after he rightly penalised Virgil van Dijk for his foul on Leroy Sane that gave City the chance to win the game late on. He was confident, explained his decision and was not swayed by the protests.
City had three other shouts for a penalty but Martin declined them all and, on balance, he was right. The most contentious was the first, when Sergio Aguero went down under a Dejan Lovren challenge. It was certainly not clear-cut and you have to be 100 per cent certain to award a penalty.
I also thought Martin was right to award Liverpool a free-kick for a foul on Van Dijk before he handled a corner, and Lovren’s hand into the face of Gabriel Jesus looked unintentional and not worthy of sanction. So, overall, the officials had a fine game.
Keith Hackett is a former referee. His book, “You are the Ref ”, is out now.