The much talked about incident involving City’s Joey Barton ‘accidentally’ catching the achilles of Pompey’s Pedro Mendes angered many, not least of all Harry who vented his displeasure at Mike Dean as the teams walked off at half time.
The incident put Mendes out for the rest of the match, the second time in one season that City have been guilty of such an issue and to the same player. But the FA felt the violent behaviour of the Manchester lout was an accident and not malicious. The fact that he did much the same thing when City played Spurs a few weeks later was of course again, an accident.
For his outburst, Harry was handed a £750 fine and warned of his future conduct after answering a charge of ‘directing abusive and/or insulting words at a match official’ – he attended the hearing personally in order to defend himself, but will the FA take any notice of the reason why such an outburst was made? About as likely as it is that Andy Cole will be the first player to score a goal at Wembley this season!
It is high time these glory hunting has-beens at the FA were eradicated, it is not only Redknapp who has been having problems with the appalling standard of refereeing this season; Sam Allardyce, Paul Jewell, Arsene Wenger are just three others who have had good reason to complain about the poor standards.
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