Why Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall is right to criticise refereeing decisions in the Premier League | OneFootball

Once upon a time, football was a physical sport. Players who committed fouls faced no repercussions except for the awarding of a free kick, unless there was a clear intent to cause harm. These days, referees dish out yellow cards for the smallest of offences and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall has become a victim of this harsh officiating.

The midfielder was shown a yellow card in stoppage time during Everton’s 1-1 draw against West Ham for a foul inside his opponents’ penalty area. Dewsbury-Hall won the ball with his boot raised in the air. When he placed his foot down it made contact with the West Ham player, which was unavoidable when two players were competing for the same ball.

West Ham were in no position to begin a promising attack and any contact Dewsbury-Hall made with the player was clearly unintentional. It is absurd that a challenge like that now warrants the same punishment as a far more serious offence.

For example, many English Everton supporters will remember Giorgio Chiellini’s foul on Bukayo Saka in the Euro 2020 final. The Italian stopped a promising attack and did so by pulling the winger’s shirt so hard he was unable to continue his run.

Even in today’s game, that is still unlikely to be given as a red card, because there were two defenders in the middle preventing the challenge from being a last man foul. And yet Dewsbury-Hall faces the same judgement for a tackle which was accidental and did not halt a threatening attacking move.

The 27-year-old is rightly frustrated by the decision, which means he will now miss Everton’s next match against Crystal Palace, who are third in the Premier League table.

He posted on his X account: “Forgive me if I’m wrong, and I might be, but some of these decisions are so hard to take. Mind boggling.”

Dewsbury-Hall’s frustration is not merely about this one yellow card. His booking in the Merseyside derby was even more bizarre, as referee Darren England took issue with him attempting to take a free kick quickly.

Getting on with the game ought to be encouraged, not penalised and doing so did not even provide Everton with much of an attacking advantage anyway. Despite this, the referee ensured he maintained his power to dictate proceedings by showing Dewsbury-Hall a yellow card, in what was quite frankly an embarrassing decision.

It was even worse, considering Curtis Jones was not booked for his challenge on Jack Grealish, which led to the free kick. Jones went straight through the back of the Everton playmaker and a yellow card would have been a reasonable decision. However, it was Dewsbury-Hall who somehow ended up with the warning.

There is no logic behind such decisions. Overly harsh refereeing appears to be part of the problem, but then again, other players experience leniency. There is a lack of consistency and it can only be described as Dewsbury-Hall put it… ‘mind boggling’!

He is not the only player to have pointed out the problems with officiating in the Premier League. James Maddison took to X after Tottenham Hotspur’s 3-0 victory over West Ham to take aim at VAR for disallowing a Cristian Romero goal due to an alleged foul by Micky van de Ven. However, the Spurs defender was clearly shoved into the player he supposedly fouled.

The decision was baffling and has certainly not been the only one. Fulham had a goal disallowed against Chelsea in August for a foul in the buildup. The PGMO later acknowledged VAR was wrong to intervene, leading to Antonee Robinson branding the standard of Premier League officiating as ‘shocking’.

His manager, Marco Silva was equally frustrated, but refrained from saying too much to avoid being punished. The fact that players and managers can be fined for stating facts about poor refereeing decisions is bewildering, yet it happens far too often.

It remains to be seen if Dewsbury-Hall will be handed a further punishment by the FA for his post on social media, but there is no way he is getting out of his one match suspension. Another weekend, another failure in Premier League refereeing.

Everton have a huge game up next against Crystal Palace. The Eagles are flying in the Premier League, despite losing a key player to Arsenal in Eberechi Eze. Every match matters to the Toffees at this point in the season, as they sit three points off the top four and four points above relegation.

However, they will go into the match without Dewsbury-Hall, all because of the unsatisfactory standard of refereeing at the highest level of English football.