At the risk of annoying of all of our Liverpool fans I have to say that I think Steve Bennett was 100% right to send Mascherano off against Manchester United. His first yellow card was warranted as he slid in late on Paul Scholes. Mascherano seemed intent on pointing out to Bennett that it was his first foul of the match but that is irrelevant. If your first foul is a bad one you are going to earn a yellow card. Thereafter, Mascherano queried every decision, usually with a few expletives thrown in for good measure. Any time a foul was committed by a United player he wanted a yellow card to be produced as he clearly felt his card was unjust. Even though it was apparent that Mascherano was a ticking time bomb, Benitez did nothing (he should have substituted him after 20 minutes) and Gerrard showed a distinct lack of leadership by not intervening to try and calm the Argentinian down. There was an inevitability about the second yellow and the level of Liverpool's brainless stupidity is demonstrated by the fact that they had won a free-kick for a foul on Torres. Yet, despite having the decision in their favour, Liverpool argued the point and both Torres and Mascherano (who ran 20 yards to get involved) picked up yellow cards. Sheer madness. And Benitez himself is doing the game of soccer no favours by supporting his player. Is it any wonder that there is so little respect in the game?
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On behalf of most Liverpool fans I believe that Bennett's decision was entirely unjust as all tackles are normally left, in important games,until the 10 minute mark passes. I think this because in such a heated derby game nerves should be allowed to settle. I do admit that Mascherano boiled over after he felt he received an unwarranted card. He is an intense player, therefore he probably got a little too hot in the situation.The official had a poor game. His decision making was inconsistent,i.e. the combined tackle from vidic and ferdinand, on torres, which led to the torres yellow and the sending off.His dismissal of Mascherano smacked of a referee keen to make up for Mike Riley's acquiescence to Ashley Cole in midweek, as Jamie Redknapp quoted that he is 'a card happy ref'.If enquiring about tackles and cards shown is worth a yellow card then every player should have been sent off.
The FA need to sort out this 'respect and dissent' sitution before it becomes a regular obstucter of the beautiful game.
1) I think the big problem everyone has with referees is lack of consistency. Therefore, what is important now, is that referees consistently punish dissent. Otherwise Mascherano will have a case that he has been victimised.
2) You could argue that Mascherano was unlucky in that his dismissal came at the end of a week dominated by a debate on dissent following Ashley Cole's behaviour towards Mike Riley. However, I would argue that, given this context, Mascherano was especially dumb. He knew the spotlight would be on dissent and yet he mouthed off.
3) I think it is a bit too easy for one-eyed fans to defend Mascherano by trotting out the line that he was sent off for merely querying a decision. His first yellow card was justified, no argument. His second I believe (not having seen the referee's report) was for persistent dissent (i.e. not just the Torres incident), much of which involved foul language.
4) Let us not forget that Mascherano got off scot-free a few weeks ago despite instigating the tussle with Aliadiere and raising his hands. As others have conceded on this blog, he was extremely fortunate on that occasion.
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