04/01/2024 24comments  |  Jump to last

Seamus Coleman spoke of Everton's resilience after they were reduced to 10 men late in the second half but held on to earn an FA Cup Third Round replay against Crystal Palace but he expressed his frustration at the staggering decision by the officials to send Dominic Calvert-Lewin off.

The striker won the ball off Nathaniel Clyne on the slide in the 79th minute of the goalless clash at Selhurst Park but, while referee Chris Kavanagh was happy to allow play to continue, Video Assistant Referee, Craig Pawson, advised him to hold up play to review an incident on the monitor that he deemed to be serious foul play.

Kavanagh upheld Pawson's decision and showed Calvert-Lewin the first red card of his career which has stunned fans, pundits and commentators alike.

“Listen, when you slow it down, it’s obviously going to look a bit worse," Coleman said in a post-match interview with ITV Sport. "From where I was, it was a great tackle and I’ve seen the replay afterwards.

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"I don’t know who the fingers need to be pointed at because as soon as the referee goes over there [to the monitor] you know he’s going to give a red card.

“It’s been a big talking point and, for me, that’s not a red card and maybe a decision that goes against us that probably won’t get talked about too much.”

Coleman was pleased with the way his team-mates dug in, though, to keep the game goalless over the remaining 20 minutes of action in which the Toffees almost grabbed a winner but James Garner and Jack Harrson spurned decent chances.

“[It was a test of our resilience] to the say the least," the skipper said. "Coming away here, it’s always a great atmosphere. I love coming down to play Crystal Palace. 

“It was a tough game and, obviously, going down to 10 men made it that much more difficult but our resilience this year has been much better and I didn’t feel like we were going to concede. We stuck together and that’s important.” 

 

Reader Comments (24)

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Colin Glassar
1 Posted 05/01/2024 at 00:10:15
We have the worst refs in Europe, possibly the world.
Jimmy Lee
2 Posted 05/01/2024 at 01:27:04
After fifty years of supporting this club I would like them to actually stand up to the authorities for a change rather than roll over and have our tummies tickled as we did when being led along regarding PSR before the knives came out.

If ever there was an on-field decision to appeal this, surely, has to be it. In our perilous position we cannot afford to have three games without our lead striker (firing or misfiring). Although tonight I thought was a poor performance for him, generally regardless of scoring he pulls the play for others such as the returning Doucoure to find spaces.

I predicted when the punishment of the 10 point deduction was applied and looked like we would overcome it that the referee and VAR decisions would be just as bad as we usually experience but would increase in quantity and so it has transpired both instantly and continuously. The FA's own rules are habitually being wrongly applied in our oppositions' favour and it is scandalously transparent.

Nothing about DCL's challenge qualified under their rule definition of one that "endangers the safety of an opponent or uses excessive force or brutality." By their own definition it was not a red card and yet...

Gary Sedgwick
3 Posted 05/01/2024 at 03:09:54
If the "real" referee was happy for play to continue and saw nothing that warranted a yellow then why the hell did VAR get involved??? The PGMOL is the laughing stock of the world or as noted previously in cahoots with the bosses of the supposed best league for football in the world.
SMH and sticking my middle finger up to both organizations as they are so corrupt and obviously working together. I am aware that the PL is not the controller for the FA Cup but still... it stinks.
Jay Harris
4 Posted 05/01/2024 at 03:14:38
Outrageous decisions,not just the red card but the obvious penalty that was just brushed away.

This VAR nonesense needs taking out of the game including the PGmol and replacing with an independent body controlling the integrity of the sport.

This cannot continue.

Rob Halligan
5 Posted 05/01/2024 at 03:33:45
The game is now on a knife edge. It will soon go beyond the point of no return with this useless shower of referees and VAR. How in gods name was that a sending off? Having seen a short clip on Twitter, it appears, besides anything else, that Clyne actually moved to the side of DCL, as well as jumping. As for the penalty decision, well it’s just baffling. Beto is literally wrestled to the ground, which is deemed to not be a penalty, yet the likes of Jota for the RS only has to have someone breathe on him before falling over and getting a penalty. There was another one, the lead up to the McNeil injury, where two of their players looked offside, but no flag went up, with play carrying on, and ultimately leading to McNeils injury.

Have just got back home, so will need to have a good look at all three incidents before making a final judgment, but quite simply, VAR is totally destroying the game. It’s just wrong that it seems to be VAR who are refereeing the game, and not the referee himself.

David Currie
6 Posted 05/01/2024 at 04:03:24
Disgraceful decision and about time the club took a stand against all these incidents that are going against us. We are getting screwed and will be tough to stay up when refs and VAR are both hating us. Still no pens given to us this season and a red card for that? Football is dying!!
Sean Mitchell
7 Posted 05/01/2024 at 04:14:17
The love for football dwindles by the day.

Stinks of absolute corruption and favouritism for the prick 6.

Robert Tressell
8 Posted 05/01/2024 at 04:17:32
It isn't a fair game. The rules are applied so inconsistently - with a clear bias in favour of clubs with a big media profile.

VAR has made it worse because the favoured clubs get another chance for a favourable decision.

We are absolute rock bottom with the media - a boring unfashionable club that's played boring unfashionable football yet stuck around for the past 35 years. And worse still, we are the local rivals to the most media favoured club in the land. We are absolutely a club where the bias is against not for.

If you ever watch La Liga as a neutral it doesn't take a genius to realise its rigged. As brilliant as Real and Barca are, the decisions they get are astonishing. It will only continue to get worse with VAR.

Mark Boullé
9 Posted 05/01/2024 at 05:56:54
Has anybody got any footage of the Beto penalty appeal? Not found it on any you tube highlights videos so far... I couldn't watch the game last night, but I've seen the DCL farce, want to see this incident also.
Andrew Ellams
10 Posted 05/01/2024 at 07:12:58
This decision, the handball penalty vs City and the disallowed goal vs Spurs. Not one of them given by the on field referee but all overturned by VAR.

It's corruption and if Dyche takes his players off the field when the next one happens I will back him to the hilt.

Andy Meighan
11 Posted 05/01/2024 at 08:10:07
I think we are all in agreement here, the game is fucked.

Someone used the word knife edge and that's absolutely spot on.

Once I heard it was Pawson who was VAR, it came as no surprise.

Funny how he hasn't reffed us since the derby isn't it, wonder why that is?

Shower of corrupt cunts – sorry for the foul language but the game has gone now. I actually feel like packing in.

55 years of going regularly and this is what it has come to.

Laszlo Balazs
12 Posted 05/01/2024 at 08:33:52
#8 Spot on, Robert.

And I can tell you, as someone who's an Everton fan outside of the UK, it's even worse here in the wild Eastern Europe. I wrote an article some days before the Merseyside derby, pointing out how exaggerated are the Szoboszlai and Liverpool hypes in Hungary, while how much of a hated club has Everton become. It's a joke.

Robert Tressell
13 Posted 05/01/2024 at 09:15:21
Laszlo - wow. Hated in Hungary. Amazing really. But the reality is that people pay a lot of money to watch these games on TV across the world and they (and the TV producers and advertisers) want to see the brand names win and put on a good show.
Michael Lynch
14 Posted 05/01/2024 at 09:31:51
I think the TV companies and the football authorities enjoy, and probably encourage, these kinds of controversies. To add a bit of balance, possibly the biggest VAR cock up of all time went against the RS v Spurs, so I don't believe it's a conspiracy against us.

However, VAR is clearly long overdue a rethink. Seamus is right to highlight the slow-motion factor. If slow mo would have been applied to Beto's pen and to Hughes's high-footed challenge, then it might have been fair to use it against DCL. As it is, VAR is being used - it seems - randomly and against its own rules.

VAR should only be applied to clear and obvious errors. There should be no slow motion, and in most circumstances the ref's decision should stand. The only real use for it is for obvious offsides and off the ball red cards that the ref didn't see.

As I said, it's in the interests of Sky etc for these VAR controversies to continue, so I can't see it changing any time soon.

Robert Tressell
15 Posted 05/01/2024 at 09:54:09
Sorry to labour this - but taking your point Laszlo, part of the entertainment for TV audiences is to see us being hard done to.

We are, in very simple terms, the baddies. We're the Indians to the media darling Cowboys. The commentary helps to dampen the injustice – as does the footage (ie, they don't include our marginal decisions).

Steve Dowdeswell
16 Posted 05/01/2024 at 13:46:37
It is becoming more difficult every match to think that the Premier League and FA don't have an agenda against us.

Every VAR decision that goes against us, every decision not reviewed by the VAR for us, and shocking refereeing at every match we play.

Mal van Schaick
17 Posted 07/01/2024 at 21:47:00
I agree with John #18.

If the red card is overturned, then that brings the match officials into disrepute and therefore, they have to be suspended.

Which way do the Premier League want it?

Derek Thomas
18 Posted 07/01/2024 at 22:13:09
Both ways, Mal, both ways.
Derek Thomas
19 Posted 07/01/2024 at 22:28:14
Robert @ 15; we get told...

'It all averages out' and for every 'good' decision there's a corresponding 'poor' one. Yeah, right… around the middle of the bell curve it probably does… but at the far ends – maybe not so much?

Liverpool, Bruce Willis, David Dunn, The Overseer.
versus
Everton, Samuel L Jackson, Elijah Price, Mr Glass.

Rob Halligan
20 Posted 07/01/2024 at 22:36:24
John # 18, and Mal # 19…

Alexis Mac Allister's red card following his sending-off against Bournemouth was later rescinded, and I'm pretty certain there has been another red card in the Premier League rescinded this season.

The thing is, though, that Mac Allister's was a straight red issued by the referee, which was upheld by the VAR, so was the integrity of all these officials brought into question?

The worrying thing about Calvert-Lewin's red card is that it was only after the VAR's intervention and so far no red card has been rescinded this season when it was issued after a VAR review.

Mark Murphy
21 Posted 08/01/2024 at 08:44:08
Something is very wrong when a club that were involved in the deaths of opposing supporters, the death of a Bulgarian waiter and countless other episodes of reprehensible behaviour (remember the wanking Buddha?) are seen as the good guys in Europe whilst we are seen as the baddies.

Koppites are Gobshites!

Phil (Kelsall) Roberts
22 Posted 08/01/2024 at 09:20:09
Mark, you forgot the attacking of the Man City coach with bricks before a Champions League Semi-Final.
Rob Halligan
23 Posted 08/01/2024 at 09:28:40
Mark, only the other week, the Man Utd team coach was attacked.

Also, anyone remember a good few years ago an ambulance carrying Alan Smith to hospital after breaking a leg whilst playing for Man Utd at Anfield being bricked by RS fans?

Most despicable bunch of gobshites on this planet.

Mark Murphy
24 Posted 08/01/2024 at 09:39:51
Phil and Rob,

I haven't forgotten those at all but there's too many to list. I don't understand how the media overlook them.

I've come off Twitter now as I was trolled by a gobshite and called a retard because I replied to a vicious post calling us horrible fans. I simply pointed out that, whilst we're no angels, we never caused the deaths of 39 people and then fly a flag celebrating it (Steua) in the Kop.

Apparantly us shouting at Kenwright and Gordon is comparable!


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