In Newcastle, Fulham manager Marco Silva expressed his frustration at referee Sam Barrott after a 3-0 loss to Newcastle. Silva believed the referee, who he felt lacked experience, was unable to handle the pressure in front of a hostile home crowd on Saturday.
Fulham suffered a setback when Raul Jimenez was shown a red card in the 22nd minute for a challenge on Sean Longstaff. The Mexican player’s aerial lunge resulted in him hitting the Newcastle midfielder in the face with his hip as he tried to block a pass.
Although the red card came after a VAR review, Silva claimed that Barrott failed to penalize Jamaal Lascelles for elbowing Jimenez, causing the forward to lose his composure and commit the foul that led to his dismissal.
“Until the 21st minute, the referee did not award us a single foul. For Newcastle, it was a free kick every time,” Silva told BBC Sport.
Silva insisted that the Premier League should select referees with the necessary experience and capability to handle high-stakes matches.
“This is a clear example of a referee who lacks the experience to manage the pressure. He did not give one doubt or foul. Even the elbow to Raul’s face,” Silva added.
Silva asserted that the referee’s initial decision to caution Jimenez was correct and blamed VAR for intervening, with Barrott overturning his yellow card for a red card after reviewing the replays.
“He jumped into the player, but you do not see anything serious, anything wrong with the other player. A yellow card was appropriate,” he added.
“VAR is attempting to find all these moments to justify their job? I don’t know. It’s clear that he (Jimenez) lost the momentum. He should have approached it differently.”
“Issuing a red card feels really odd. It was a strange afternoon for the referee. I tried to speak with him, but he almost ran to the dressing room. This is the situation we are currently dealing with.”
(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
