Oliver is not a Buffon... he got penalty call spot on according to new rules

NOT for the first time in recent weeks, Michael Oliver had a furious Italian on his hands.

The 33-year-old had just correctly pointed to the spot for Phil Jones’s lunge on Eden Hazard but, incorrectly in the view of Chelsea boss Antonio Conte, decided not to send off the Manchester United defender.

Out came the yellow card and off went Conte, hopping angrily on the touchline.

It wasn’t quite on the same scale as Gianluigi Buffon, who went positively berserk when Oliver awarded Real Madrid an injurytime penalty against his Juventus team at the Bernabeu last month for Medhi Benatia’s challenge on Lucas Vasquez.

Oliver, of course, sent off Buffon on his Champions League farewell.

The veteran keeper later accused Oliver of having ‘a bag of rubbish for a heart’ and the Northumberland official and his family were subjected to death threats. This time the penalty decision was more clear-cut, even if Conte felt Jones’s tackle was worthy of a red card.

Referee Oliver got it right again by the letter of the law. No12, to be precise.

It was changed before Euro 2016, allowing referees to only caution players who had made an attempt to play the ball and not the man.

It states: ‘Where a player commits an offence against an opponent within their own penalty area which denies an opponent an obvious goal-scoring opportunity and the referee awards a penalty kick, the offending player is cautioned if the offence was an attempt to play the ball.

‘In all other circumstances (eg holding, pulling, pushing, no possibility to play the ball etc) the offending player must be sent off.’

At the end of a week in which Buffon admitted he would hug the referee if he saw him now, Conte was more forgiving at the final whistle than he otherwise might have been.