Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca was pissed off. Not due to the dismissal of Moises Caicedo towards Arsenal on Sunday, however about what he perceived to be a scarcity of consistency.

You possibly can see his level. Final month Tottenham midfielder Rodrigo Bentancur was booked for a foul on Reece James, which the video assistant referee (VAR) agreed with. But when Caicedo was cautioned for the same problem on Mikel Merino there was an intervention for a pink card.

“It is a pink card, however why was Bentancur’s towards Reece [James] not a pink card once we had been at Spurs away?” Maresca requested.

“So us, as a supervisor, we wrestle to know why they decide otherwise.

“Moises’ is a pink card, sure. Bentancur’s is a pink card, sure. Why do not they provide him a pink card? It is simply that we wrestle to know. The truth is that it is a pink card. However why do they decide it otherwise?”

So, what was the distinction?

Effectively, outcomes are partly dependent upon who the VAR is – which makes consistency very tough.

No two fouls are ever the identical and there are refined variations between the 2. Bentancur was solely actually stepping in, whereas Caicedo jumped slightly and his contact level was barely increased.

There was additionally a pronounced buckle of Merino’s ankle, which is one thing a VAR is in search of to point extreme power, and his boot was shifted again on the turf.

In Bentancur’s case, the Premier League’s Key Match Incidents (KMI) Panel supported the yellow card for Bentancur by 4 votes to at least one, and unanimously backed no VAR intervention “on the idea that the problem was low, simply barely late and reckless”.

The KMI panel will again the choice to ship off Caicedo but it surely is not going to be too lengthy earlier than one other sort out of its sort is deemed only a yellow card.

For the reason that begin of the 2023-24 season the KMI Panel has logged 12 errors on severe foul play opinions.