Dermot Gallagher has 'lucky' Aston Villa theory in Stuart Attwell and Ipswich Town controversy

Amadou Onana of Aston Villa runs with the ball under pressure from Sam Morsy of Ipswich Town
-Credit: (Image: Getty Images)


Ipswich Town should have had a player sent off in their 2-2 draw with Aston Villa, according to former Premier League referee Dermot Gallagher.

Villa were leading 2-1 towards the end of Sunday’s game at Portman Road when Sam Morsy lunged into a tackle on Jaden Philogene despite having already been booked for a foul on Morgan Rogers.

Shortly afterwards Liam Delap bagged his second of the game to secure a share of the points and while Unai Emery chose not to make a big issue of the incident, the game’s pundits Jamie Redknapp and Ashley Young both thought Morsy had been fortunate.

As did Gallagher, speaking on Sky Sports’ Ref Watch, the former official believe Stuart Attwell did not handle Morsy’s infringing correctly.

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“I have a bit of a theory about this. I think he's lucky to stay on the field,” Gallagher said. “The reason I say that is a little bit earlier he was on a yellow card and he fouled [Youri] Tielemans about ten minutes earlier.

“Now, I don't think that's the second yellow card but what I do think is every referee was really, really good at something and Mark Clattenburg was the absolute expert at what I call setting a player up.

“What he'd have done, he'd have hooked him out and said: ‘Look, I'm telling you, you're right on the edge now and the next tackle, you're going to be sent off’.

“Then when he made a tackle on Philogene and he sent him off, everybody goes ‘He's just told him, what can you expect?’

“But because he didn't do that, he hasn't put himself in that position of strength that he can go back. He [Morsy] could well, have got a second yellow just for that challenge anyhow but if he'd done the first one and acted like I think Clattenburg would, I think he's in a marvellous position to just go. ‘Yeah, send him off’ and everyone goes ‘He's told him’.”

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