Thomas Frank has said that referee Chris Kavanagh failed to show common sense while making a big decision, which cost Tottenham dearly against Newcastle United.
The contention was about Newcastle’s opening goal, which was headed in by Fabian Schar from a corner in the 24th minute.
However, Djed Spence was tying his shoelaces at the time, with Sandro Tonali taking the corner-kick before the Spurs full-back could get back in position, which meant that the away side had a numerical disadvantage while defending the corner.
The Spurs players were livid with the goal, with captain Pedro Porro leading the protests, and Richarlison was even booked for his complaints to the referee.
Thomas Frank says Chris Kavanagh’s ‘big mistake’ cost Tottenham
Frank, who is not usually one to talk about refereeing decisions after matches, did not hold back on his thoughts on Kavanagh’s call.
The Dane insisted that it was a clear mistake by the official to not allow Spence to get back into position to defend the corner, suggesting that the decision lacked common sense.
When asked about Newcastle’s opening goal, Frank said (via Football.London): “Yeah, I think that was clear. I think for me, we conceded two goals because of two mistakes, in my opinion. Unfortunately, the ref was part of the mistake in the first one.
“I’m not saying there are things we can’t do better, but his boot is off, we need to tie his shoelace and wear his boot. And you can clearly see on the footage afterwards that the whole boot is off, so we need to do it. And it’s minute 23, it’s not like we delayed the game for 10 minutes and we have one goal up. It’s common sense to allow him time to get in.
“So as soon as he had the boot on, the ref let it go. And then, to make it perfect, Djed’s man, he had to mark, was Schar, that scored. So that’s why we were very animated. I think that was the biggest one. I think the rest was fine.
“There’s always small bits you can be irritated about, but it’s very difficult to ref a game. But this, for me, was unfortunately a big mistake. And then we made a mistake ourselves on the second one. So small margins decided the game today.”
Refereeing during set pieces has to be improved
It is now widely acknowledged that set-pieces are becoming an increasingly important part of the game at Premier League level.
However, it feels like many officials are still guessing their way through fouls and infringements during deadball situations.
While the example of Newcastle’s first goal is perhaps more clear-cut and is a case where common sense should have prevailed, there is broadly a lack of coherence on what counts as fouls during set pieces.
There have been many times over the last two years that Guglielmo Vicario has been clearly fouled, but officials have not called it due to the Italian’s reputation for being bad at dealing with crosses.