rare as rockinghorse shat wrote:I'd say if it was a penalty - which could have gone either way - then it was quite a relatively soft one.
Hockley Hammer wrote:Seeing it again I think you can see why it was given. It looked like a lunge and if there was any contact then it's a penalty.
When I first saw it, and for the first few replays, I was convinced there was no absolutely contact at all. I wasn't looking hard enough, or for long enough, as the contact came after the challenge.
Faye lunged after the ball, his foot almost attempting a stamp to reach it. Throughout the entire movement of his leg, when he was reaching for the ball, all the way through to when his foot stamps into the ground, having failed to reach the ball, there was no contact with the Reading player.
Then, after Faye's foot was firmly planted in the ground, the Reading player ran into his stationary foot and fell to the ground.
It wasn't like Faye's momentum took him into the player, so although his foot didn't catch him, his body carried on into the player, either
But the Reading player made sure his run took him into Faye, made sure his foot tangled with Faye's, so when he flung himself to the ground there had been contact.
Very much a case of a player looking for the penalty, and the ref falling for it. It happens a lot, the likes of Torres is a master... wait for the challenge to come in, and make sure there's contact, before performing the "fall"
I thought Foy was appalling all game, on so many levels, but I guess worse refs than him have fallen for the make sure there's contact trick. And whilst I thought there were question marks about a few of their goals, I felt the penalty was the most obvious example of the officials not getting it right, and was a major turning point in the game