Everton were not playing yesterday, but one of their players has still dominated the headlines for something he did in the Premier League.
Given how awful the Toffees have been playing lately, it is surprising that any teams nearby would have sought their cast-offs, but it speaks something about Sheffield United’s lack of quality that they were willing to extort Mason Holgate from Southampton in order to give him the playing time he was missing.
That has already backfired, as evidenced by his three divisional starts, one five-goal thumping, and this most recent red card.
It was an egregious challenge that has, understandably, attracted a lot of attention. Alan Shearer is the most recent to comment.
What Alan Shearer said about Mason Holgate
During an interview with Gary Lineker on The Rest is Football podcast, the former striker for Newcastle United and Blackburn Rovers did not hold back when discussing Holgate’s antics during Super Sunday’s late kickoff.
He not only put Kaoru Mitoma in danger, but he also gave Chris Wilder’s team a huge opening for another crushing defeat by earning his expulsion so soon.
“I thought it was a terrible, terrible, awful challenge,” Shearer angrily stated. I assumed it was one of those plays where he felt he could take the ball and the man for granted. It was also an unexpected obstacle.
‘As a manager and a team you plan all week what you are going to do and then you get one of your players sent off for such a crazy challenge like that. It must drive you bonkers.’
A true horror tackle from the on-loan Everton man
Over the past few years, VAR has come under heavy fire—and rightfully so—for its careless application and the sheer number of blunders it still makes when used to correct problems.
If anything, this technology has provoked more controversy than ever, but now that the Premier League has pulled it out of the bag, it cannot be put away.
Decisions can go wrong because there is just too much money involved in the game, and even if the referees keep making mistakes, incidents like yesterday provide justification for their introduction.
The whole stadium was aware of how awful Holgate’s terror challenge was. The referee, whose judgement counted above everything, saw fit to first only issue a yellow card, regardless of whether he was blind or not.
Not surprise, it was upped to red very shortly, and the 27-year-old was told to march off.
Though this opinion was not always met with rejection, Evertonians had become frustratingly accustomed to it. He had a reputation for being reckless on Merseyside.
Those types of tackles have no place in the game nowadays, therefore it’s fortunate that VAR was introduced to rectify the referee’s first mistake. He needed to leave.
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