Was Martin Atkinson right not to penalise Ashley Barnes for his challenge with Nemanja Matic at Stamford Bridge on Saturday?

 

Andrew Greenwood

NO he wasn’t.

I’ve watched the incident a few times and to be honest I’m 50/50 whether it was intentional or not. Only Ashley will know that but even if the ref thought it was merely a clumsy challenge he should still have booked him.

If he thought it was intentional then it should have been a red. I find it strange that the authorities say the ref saw the incident but he did nothing at all. But had Nemanja Matic not reacted like he had or if Chelsea had won then there wouldn’t have been all this reaction.

 

Amer Stansfield-Mushtaq

JOSE Mourinho’s reaction has been, to say the least, over the top.

Calling Ashley Barnes challenge criminal and gate crashing a Sky Sports programme proves that.

Will all managers now do that after a bad tackle? No. Jose is clearly trying to get into referees heads. If I’m honest, if that tackle was made against a Burnley player we would be asking for a red card all day long.

He got away with it as do many players during the course of a season.

 

 

Andrew Kerin

I GENUINELY believe that there was no malicious intent in Barnes’s tackle on Matic.

Over-exuberant yes, malicious no.

Ashley went for the ball, not the man, and won it. Slow motion replays always make tackles look worse than they actually are.

None of the other Chelsea players reacted at the time of the tackle, the Chelsea bench didn’t react which tells its own story.

Ashley is a very competitive player and that crucial attribute will be needed throughout the team if we are to avoid relegation.