- Robbie Savage moots crisis after what happened to Everton this week
Robbie Savage has mooted a āCrisisā in English football after watching Everton striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin sent off against Crystal Palace in the FA Cup.
Writing in hisĀ Daily MirrorĀ column [06 January, pg 63], Savage could not believe what he was watching at Selhurst Park on Thursday 4 January, as it finished 0-0.
VAR intervened after the striker slightly caught Nathaniel Clyne, something the former Leicester man insisted failed all red-card tests on the night.
He wrote: āThereās no point in sugar-coating it: English football has a refereeing crisis.
āWe reached a new low on Thursday night with the nonsense of Everton striker Dominic Calvert-Lewinās red card in the FA Cup tie at Crystal Palace.
āShow that incident to 100 ex-professional players and not one of them would agree it was a sending-off. I donāt understand how VAR official Craig Pawson concluded there was excessive force, or that Calvert-Lewinās challenge endangered the safety of an opponent.
āIt failed the red-card test on both counts.ā
The game is quickly becoming unbearable to watch, and it is those at the top who are in charge who are ruining it every single week with these kinds of decisions.
Everton has already appealed to the FA over the decision, and hopefully, that will be sorted soon and normality returns for the club and for Calvert-Lewin too.
No matter the amount of training and lessons these officials appear to be given, they are lacking a total understanding of the rules right now, and it is shocking to watch.
Those rules always changing and VAR coming into the game cannot be easy, we understand that, but these are basic decisions that they can make themselves, even after going to the monitor.
The fact that we basically never see an on-pitch official go against VAR tells you everything you need to know, these referees have no power, and the game is suffering right now.
Everton are taking the brunt of it too, that has to change immediately.
