Pundit claims Spurs player may come under more scrutiny from officials now

Alan Hutton has predicted Dejan Kulusevski may come under extra scrutiny from officials going forward after escaping a red card against Brighton. 

The 21-year-old became embroiled in an incident with Marc Cucurella during Spurs’ 1-0 defeat on Saturday, when he appeared to have swung his elbow in the defender’s direction (Sky Sports). 

Thankfully, he made minimal contact with the Spaniard and Kulusevski avoided receiving his marching orders from referee Craig Pawson, who showed him a yellow card after a quick VAR check. 

And despite staying on the pitch without further punishment after the altercation, former Spurs defender Hutton believes the Sweden international could now be monitored much closer by officials. 

Asked whether Kulusevski will be kept an eye on down the line, he told Football Insider: “I think he has to be. You can’t put people in danger. That’s a problem. 

“You understand you use your elbows to get height, to jump up. If you lead with it or whatever and you catch somebody, it’s dangerous.

“It can be very dangerous and it falls down to VAR. They can say to the referee if they’re not sure: ‘Go have a look. I’m not 100 per cent, so just go look at the screen.’

“It’s subjective. That’s the grey area with it. It depends who’s looking at it. Some people may think: ‘Okay, that’s a foul, go and have a look at it and check it.’

“Others might think that’s not a foul for me. So it really falls down who’s looking at the monitor. As much as I say VAR’s a good thing, it’s all dependent on who looks at it.”

Kulusevski has been on excellent form for Tottenham since joining the club from Juventus in the January transfer window. Although being nullified by Brighton, he has still tallied a strong three goals and six assists in 12 Premier League appearances (Transfermarkt). 

Spurs Web Opinion 

The incident was not great and Kulusevski was pretty fortunate that it was deemed worthy of just a yellow card. On another day he could’ve seen red and at that stage of the game it would have left Spurs with a lot of work to do. Hopefully, it was just a one-off reaction and something that won’t creep into his game in the long run. 

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