Former Premier League referee Keith Hackett claims that Lisandro Martinez could’ve ended Cole Palmer’s career in a tackle which should be ‘outlawed’.
Martinez used his studs to clear down Palmer’s leg in the final few minutes of Manchester United’s 1-1 draw with Chelsea on Sunday.
England star Palmer had produced a fine piece of skill to flick the ball away from Martinez, who responded by lashing out.
The Chelsea playmaker went down in pain and Martinez was immediately shown a yellow card by referee Rob Jones. Replays showed how the United centre-back’s boot landed on Palmer’s knee before catching the lower half of his leg but Jones’ colleague, Michael Salisbury, didn’t recommend a VAR check.
Hackett disagreed with the decision and wrote in his column for the Telegraph:
🗣️ “The landing area of the boot was on Palmer’s knee and quite clearly it endangered the player’s safety. Referee Rob Jones was in a good position to view the incident and decided yellow.
He probably concluded that there was insufficient force behind Martinez’s challenger to warrant a stronger sanction.
That for me was a clear and obvious error and VAR should have asked the referee to go and review the incident on the pitch-side monitor. We have seen a lot of yellow cards this season but the laws, which were penned to protect players by issuing red cards, should be enforced when appropriate.”
