Description of incident: Lucas played a neat one-two as he entered the right hand side of the Stoke City penalty area. Higginbotham came across to challenge Lucas as he came onto the exquisite return ball. Lucas went tumbling as the ball went over the byline with both referee & linesman agreed with the decision of no penalty & goal kick to Stoke. The ref then booked Lucas for diving.
Date of Game: Saturday 16th January 2010
Home Team: 
Stoke City |
Away Team: 
Liverpool
Referee: Lee Mason |
Linesman: Simon Long & Mo Matadar
Decision Type: Penalty |
Verdict: 
|
Decision Difficulty: 4/5
Decision Type: Booking for diving |
Verdict: |
Decision Difficulty: 2/5
Affect on Result: Hard to say for definite as it occurred much earlier than the rest of the real action however, arguably cost Liverpool the game |
Winner: Stoke City |
Loser: Liverpool
Players Involved: Leiva Lucas (Liverpool) & Danny Higginbotham (Stoke City)
Summary: I'm taking the referee's position into account, as his view of the incident was a difficult one; Lucas did appear to be tumbling before contact with Higginbotham. However, as Andy Gray pointed out during the live commentary of Sky Sports, it's not Lucas' job to get out of the way of the challenge. And Higginbotham's challenge was a rash one. So, although I expect these types of calls to go either way, I still feel it was a penalty and Lee Mason got it wrong. Although on this occasion, I feel more criticism lies with the linesman as he had a better view. With regards to the booking for diving, I saw this as a relatively easy decision and felt the ref also got this one wrong. I think he was justifying his no penalty decision by making this call on the dive. Was Lucas looking for the penalty? Yes. Does that mean it wasn't a penalty or that Lucas should be punished? No.
Cheers,
WB
| Decision Difficulty: 1/5
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