Chris Sutton discusses Ayoze Perez’s red card against West Ham
Chris Sutton believes that Leicester attacker Ayoze Perez was potentially unlucky to be sent off against West Ham.
The Spaniard stood on Pablo Fornals, and after a quick VAR check, he was sent off with the Hammers leading by a goal to nil.
Perez’s tackle looked awful in real-time and on the replay, but Sutton believes that the Leicester forward was fouled in the build-up to the red card.
He told BBC 5Live: “It’s interesting seeing it as a still because he is off balance. It looks horrible at the point, but Perez is just explaining that he was trying to get his balance there.
“There’s an argument that Perez was fouled in the first place from Cresswell, and he’s unbalanced from that, but he does catch Fornals, and it is high above his ankle.”
Was Perez right to be sent off?
Even if the former Newcastle United man was knocked off balance and was fouled, you would have thought he still had enough time to avoid stamping down on Fornals’ leg?
Therefore, the red card was definitely the right decision, and though Sutton is trying to play devil’s advocate with this comment, there is no way that in the modern game that wasn’t a red card.
In truth, it made little difference to the first half, and the Hammers were more than good value for their lead.
Perez made a bad challenge and was rightly punished, and luckily Fornals was fine to continue after he opened the scoring.
In other West Ham news, one pundit wasn’t happy with the first half display of one Irons star.
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