Everton star a victim of inconsistent officiating

UPDATE: Andre Gomes has chosen to not contest the charge leveled by the FA and will subsequently be suspended for the next three games of the season, against Manchester United, Crystal Palace and Burnley.

Late Monday brought us the cherry on top of a rather poor weekend sundae that had seen Everton meekly capitulate to a rambunctious but relegated Fulham side.

The Football Association have chosen to charge the Barcelona on-loan midfielder Andre Gomes with violent conduct following a stamp on the Londoners’ bull-in-a-china-shop striker Aleksandar Mitrovic late in the game.

The Portuguese midfielder will have until late on Tuesday to respond to the charges which could carry a three-game suspension for the player.

“Everton’s Andre Gomes has been charged with violent conduct.

“This follows an incident in the 95th minute of the Premier League fixture against Fulham on Saturday [13/04/2019] that was not seen by the match officials but caught on video. The midfielder has until 18:00 on Tuesday [16/04/2019] to respond to the charge.”

The decision from the FA is a frustrating one on a number of counts. Apparently referee Lee Probert claims in his match report to have not seen the incident, yet he waved play on indicating to Mitrovic to get up during the action.

However, in all fairness Gomes absolutely deserves to be suspended for his petulant action. Just seconds before he had grappled the forward to the floor during an Everton corner and there appeared to be a row simmering there between the two players. Of course, Mitrovic had been busy flailing arms and legs all game long in a number of tussles with every single member of the Blues backline as well as goalkeeper Jordan Pickford, but that appears to have been conveniently forgotten.

Speaking of forgotten, Jorginho’s two-footed attempt to eviscerate Gylfi Sigurdsson in full flight at Stamford Bridge didn’t set off any alarm bells in the video review booth. And that is just one example that comes to mind right now as I write this, yet far worse is being gotten away with, within clear sight of referees, assistants and caught on cameras as well.

The league made a big hullabaloo about suspending Oumar Niasse for two games last season for ‘successful deception of a match official’, yet promptly failed to punish even more egregious dives week in and week out since then.

This kind of biased and inconsistent refereeing and match officiating is what continues to earn the FA and the Premier League the supporters’ ire, and even though Gomes deserves his suspension, the Blues will be right to feel hard done by as the league once again attempts to make the Toffees poster-boys for disciplinary action.