Diedhiou’s goal was not about ‘justice’, says Dean
BIRMINGHAM City defender Harlee Dean has hit out at Bristol City striker Famara Diedhiou.
Diedhiou scored the winner in the Robins’ 1-0 victory at St Andrew’s, which some labelled justice after the Senegalese striker was handed a six-match ban for a controversial alleged spitting incident at the same ground last season.
The Robins have always maintained Diedhiou’s innocence, but Dean has now controversially reignited the debate around the issue.
“I don’t know about ‘justice’,” the Blues centre-half said to Birmingham Live. “He deserved to get a sixmatch ban. If that wasn’t on a football pitch, he would have got a lot more than that, if I’m being honest.
“He scored a goal, that’s his job. I’m not going to comment on that anymore, but I don’t think it was ‘justice’. He just scored a goal.”
Dean was marking Diedhiou when he turned in Callum O’Dowda’s cross, but the defender felt there was little he could have done to prevent the Robins goal.
He said: “It’s not like I’ve lost the man. It was a great ball and I’m tight as you like to him. It was just one of those ones where I could never get to it.
“I can’t wrap my head around his and I can’t be in front of him because if he pulls away from me on the back post and scores, then it is my fault.
“It is a combination of two things, a great ball and first contact.
“Maybe I could have held him more, I don’t know. I’m disappointed because it is my man, but I also felt I didn’t do a lot wrong.”