Following the utterly bizarre game last weekend between Leeds United and Aston Villa, in some ways it’s actually difficult to remember the match as the controversial talking points naturally take over given how the game played itself out.
A foul, a player looking like he was about to repay a favour and put the ball out, just as we had done moments before, and then clipping it to a colleague (who looked offside at any rate) who subsequently scored – to then seeing their manager Marcelo Bielsa instruct his players to let Albert Adomah walk the ball in the net after speaking to Dean Smith and John Terry, where all but one player took that instruction.
And that’s before we get to the fracas in the middle of it all where Patrick Bamford went down quicker than I can type the word I, despite no contact being made, the Conor Hourihane incident, Anwar El Ghazi’s red card and breath.
We can confirm @AElGhazi7’s red card against Leeds United has been rescinded.
The winger is available for the Norwich City game this weekend and our subsequent Play-Off semi-final matches.#AVFC pic.twitter.com/aJsPPHlHJ6
— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) April 30, 2019
Smith made it abundantly clear we would be appealing the card and he had no doubt it would be successful, and a short time ago this evening Villa confirmed that our appeal had been upheld and El Ghazi will be available for the Norwich clash, as well as the Play-Off Semi-Final games.
Bamford, for his part, has been charged with ‘successful deception of a match official’ and could now face a two game ban himself, as presumably there is no doubt about his guilt here – the camera makes that abundantly obvious.
Understand incident involving Conor Hourihane and Mateusz Klich was reviewed by a three-person panel and was not deemed to be violent conduct. #avfc #lufc
— matt maher (@mjmarr_star) April 30, 2019
Both sides have predictably been charged with failing to control their players, but we’ll just pay the fine.
