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Chelsea need expert help to cut down on sendings off

Antonio Conte and Michael Oliver
Referee Michael Oliver (right) had a good game at Stamford Bridge, though Chelsea manager Antonio Conte may not have seen it quite that way after David Luiz was sent off for a reckless challenge Credit:  AP

After having five players sent off in their last eight matches, Chelsea need to get someone in from the Professional Games Match Officials Limited or even David Elleray, the International Football Association Board’s technical director, to talk to the manager and the players over what is and is not acceptable when challenging for the ball.

Those five red cards are not the fault of referees, it is down to the failure of players to recognise what is acceptable in the game of football.

David Luiz’s sending off was, like last week’s red card for Liverpool’s Sadio Mané, a reminder to players that they have a duty of care to opponents.

A player cannot use the the fact he is going for ball as an excuse. If you lunge in with one or two feet you are out of control, recklessly endangering an opponent and should receive a red card.

Michael Oliver, the referee at Stamford Bridge, had a good match and got the key decisions right. He is heading towards becoming our top referee. He should, however, think about tempo management, a way of slowing things down and bringing control back to the game.

The match was not out of control but there were times when it looked like it was going that way and was in need of tempo management. For instance, when he was cautioning a player, he could have taken him to one side and explained why he was showing him the card.

That pause in the game would have helped him show his authority not only to that player but to everyone else on the pitch, too.

The other thing about Michael was that having issued the red card to Luiz, he felt the need to go across to the Chelsea technical area and have a debate with their manager, Antonio Conte.

That invites a problem because later in the game, if he been required to send off an Arsenal player, people might say that he had been influenced by the Chelsea manager.

He had no need to look in the direction of the technical area, whatever was being said. He can leave that to the fourth official.

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