Soft Hard Men - Matic and Co.

Last Saturday Nemanja Matic lost his rag and shoved Ashley Barnes to the ground in Chelsea’s 1-1 draw with Burnley. Since then he has received a three match ban, which was appealed and now dropped to a two match ban. Two questions.

How?! and why?!

Chelsea’s board/Mourinho/everyone to do with Chelsea was apparently expecting the ban to drop to one game so Matic could still play in the League Cup Final against Tottenham. But, in my opinion, rightly the ban stood.

“He has been unjustly punished…”...apparently. It’s done my head in that he is a role model to young fans, on thousands of pounds a week, meant to be a professional footballer and he blows his top because he got studded on the shin pad? the soft turd!

You see worse tackles than that on a Sunday down at your local park. Yeah it looked ugly but the way people talk about it is a complete over reaction. They’re making out that Barnes flew into the tackle planning to break a leg, with so much aggression even Duncan Ferguson would think “settle down lad”...

But no what in my eyes happened was Barnes was trying to play a pass backwards, Matic has made a perfect stretching interception and Barnes’ passing leg followed on a caught Matic on the shin...no malice, no aggression even with the way he walked away after he didn’t realise he’d done anything wrong.

I’ve made a bad tackle accidentally and when I did it I knew I’d done it.

Another comment that came was that it should have been his second yellow card as Barnes had kneed Branislav Ivanovic in the back earlier in the game. Another thing that annoyed me…

He’s a 6ft1 Serbian hard man, gets a knee into his arse, lands on his arse again, rolls around on the ground holding his knee...before getting up and telling the referee to keep and eye on him…man up Branislav you soft sod.

That is Chelsea’s team to a T though. Hard men and seasoned professionals until the tables turn and they don’t get their own way, this includes Mourinho. Don’t get me wrong Chelsea have got some of the greatest players currently in the Premier League but I’d love to see if that whinging would continue if Big Sam was in charge.

He’d be the first to say after the game “well Branislav and Nemanja were a right pair of mourngy gits tonight wasn’t they?”. The only one I notice that doesn’t moan or cry is John Terry (no pun intended) for me he’s got the intelligence and the experience to just get on with it.

This type of situation seems to happen a lot with larger clubs. Always having bans successfully appealed. Matic shoves a professional footballer to the ground and receives a two match ban, a League Two player could get a red for the referee misreading a dive and the player will still receive a three match ban. Why is Chelsea’s season more important than the season of Bury or Wimbledon?

~ Side note: it’s always annoyed me that the lower leagues take a back seat to the Prem. It’s awful if you haven’t got Sky or Virgin and can’t record The Football League Show. Imagining what it’s like having to stay up until 1 o’clock in the morning to watch 15 seconds of a 1-1 draw against Walsall ~

I do like that the FA have said that Matic’s “violent reaction” can not be condoned. Makes me think that they’re not as corrupt as what people are making out...Then again the 2022 World Cup is still being done in Qatar. I’ll say no more on that subject…

Last note from me is that despite Matic’s reaction I also thought Barnes really played on that little shove. He went flying. Matic is a “hard man” but he’s not hard enough to prod someone to the ground like that. Reaction deserved a sending off but it didn’t help with his going down like that.

Anyway’s I’m missing Barca vs Man City.

Cheers for reading.