'Looking for a way out' - Graham Smyth shares Leeds United theory after Aston Villa flashpoint - YEP 6/10/22
YEP chief football writer Graham Smyth has posited the theory that Premier League official Stuart Attwell had forgotten Luis Sinisterra was already on a booking before sending the Leeds United man for an early bath last weekend
By Joe Donnohue
A red card for Leeds United winger Luis Sinisterra last
weekend means the Colombian international will sit out this Sunday’s fixture
away to Crystal Palace.
Leeds have been on the receiving end of some contentious
officiating decisions this season, including the incident which saw Crysencio
Summerville felled inside the Brentford penalty area last month, and Jesse
Marsch subsequently sent off for his protestations.
In their most recent fixture at Elland Road, the decision to
reduce Leeds to ten men was likely the correct one, but the inconsistency with
which referee Stuart Attwell officiated the game, in particular failing to
clamp down on Aston Villa’s time-wasting, left a sour taste in the mouth of
Leeds supporters.
Speaking on the Inside Elland Road podcast from the
Yorkshire Evening Post, chief football writer Graham Smyth shared his thoughts
on last Sunday’s game-defining moment: “Now, Sinisterra's red card, it's really
silly from Sinisterra. You know, when he's on a yellow putting his foot up to waist
height to block a free kick is just dumb. It's a dumb move.
"And Jesse Marsch said as much when he said 'it's not
an intelligent play'. What transpired in the seconds after the red card came or
after the yellow card came out, said to me that [Stuart] Attwell had lost the
run of himself a little bit, because he had to be reminded that it was
Sinisterra's second yellow.
"That makes me think, would he have given a yellow for
that had he remembered or would he have just given him a severe talking to? And
what he did then after he showed the red, go and speak to the fourth official
for some unknown reason, speaking into his earpiece, he looked like a referee
looking for a way out of the decision he had just made.
“You know, 'give me a reason not to send him off'. And can
you imagine Villa's response had they found, had there been some miracle that
the ball was moving when Villa took it, or they took it from the wrong place or
Sinisterra was roughly 10 yards back? They would have been apoplectic.
"Stevie G would have been volleying water bottles with
the same kind of venom that he struck that goal in the FA Cup Final. He would
have been beyond himself. And you would have understood that.
"It just wasn't a good look for the Premier League and
for Stuart Attwell. And then the game just kind of settled into a pattern that
was always going to happen.”
Jesse Marsch refused to comment on the performance of the
officials last weekend, after serving a one-match touchline ban following his
red card at Brentford on September 4.
Attwell will not officiate a Premier League fixture this
weekend, instead taking on VAR responsibilities at Stockley Park for Brighton
and Hove Albion’s match against Tottenham Hotspur.