Carragher Calls Mac Allister’s Fall ‘Embarrassing’ as Ladyman Wants Red Card Option

• Jamie Carragher called Alexis Mac Allister’s fall against Noni Madueke “a joke” after Liverpool’s 1-0 home defeat by Arsenal, per Mirror.
• Referee Andy Madley booked Mac Allister and Jurrien Timber, while VAR Stuart Attwell called the contact “not forceful, not violent, not brutal”.
• Ian Ladyman wants IFAB to give referees a red card option for faked injuries meant to get an opponent sent off.

A Liverpool Fan, an Arsenal Great and a Columnist Want the Laws Changed

Live on television at full time on Sunday, Jamie Carragher turned on a player from the club he supports. “I’m a Liverpool fan and it’s a joke from Mac Allister, it’s got to stop,” he said. Carragher had just watched Alexis Mac Allister drop to the ground in the second half at Anfield after minor contact with the forehead of Arsenal’s Noni Madueke. Madueke was already on a yellow card. The officials were not fooled. Mac Allister was booked, and Carragher said he was “delighted he didn’t get sent off there”, a reference to Madueke. The argument now centres on players who go down to get an opponent punished.

The Flashpoint That Sent Mac Allister to the Floor

Gary Neville, on co-commentary beside Carragher, put the blame on Mac Allister for what came first. Neville said Mac Allister had slapped Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard on the back of the head while Odegaard was on the ground, which he called unnecessary. Timber and Madueke then confronted the Liverpool midfielder, and Madueke, who scored a late winner at Nottingham Forest earlier this season, went head to head with him.

Watching the incident play out, Neville said: “A little inch forward can cost you a lot.” He then turned on the fall itself: “Mac Allister’s reaction is a bit over the top, I can tell you that. Get up. Embarrassing.”

Madley gave yellow cards to Mac Allister and Timber. Attwell, the VAR, gave his own reading of the contact: “There is some contact as Madueke and Mac Allister square up. In my opinion, it’s not forceful, not violent, not brutal”.

What Carragher, Wright and Ladyman Want

Carragher did not stop at his own player. “We have really got to be strong and start calling people out and say ‘this is embarrassing’. It’s got to stop, it’s ridiculous. I can’t stand it.” He said a head butt is a red card, but a head to head clash in which one player touches the other, who goes down, and the first is sent off is a different matter. The game, he said, must “call your own out for it”. Players keep trying it, in his view, knowing that red cards get handed out. He named Howard Webb, the Premier League and the managers as the people who should get together and end it. Carragher has not spared his own club this season, including a call to drop Florian Wirtz after the 3-0 home defeat by Manchester City.

Arsenal great Ian Wright joined him. Wright said the laws “have to do something about this” and that Mac Allister’s fall was an attempt to get someone sent off. He said “Common sense prevailed”, as Madueke had confronted Mac Allister without pushing his head into him.

Ladyman went furthest. Arsenal defender Gabriel Magalhaes had gone down holding his face in the first half after Alexander Isak brushed his neck and chest, and Madley told him to get up. Ladyman counts both falls as cheating and says it is “handy” that one came from each side, which spares everyone the usual accusations of bias. Neville used the word embarrassing about Gabriel, and Carragher used it about Mac Allister. Ladyman says it goes deeper: “It’s malevolent. It’s low. It’s pre-meditated. It’s wicked.” Short of spitting and leg-breaking tackles, he cannot think of much worse on a football field than pretending to have a head or facial injury.

The Rule Referees Do Not Have

Ladyman points out that referees can already book a player for simulation. His question is why they have no power, even in rare and exceptional cases, to show a red card. He asks whether Gabriel and Mac Allister would try it if the referee had that option, and his answer is “very probably not”. IFAB, the lawmakers, are the ones he wants to act.

He also wants more room to punish after the final whistle. A law passed a decade ago, Ladyman writes, lets a review panel ban a player for two games, in theory, for “successful deception of a match official”. He says VAR has largely replaced it and that it was only really used against divers chasing penalties. Once a match ends, he says, there is very little recourse, so cheating of this kind still looks like a risk worth taking.

The row comes with an Iraola footnote. Liverpool manager Andoni Iraola suggested after the match that he must start telling his players to go down under contact, after Isak stayed on his feet under a shirt tug from Timber that went unpunished. Ladyman calls that important too. In his words, a foul is a foul, whatever the reaction.

Today a referee can book a player for going down, and in Ladyman’s reading has nothing stronger. The push for tougher action came from a Liverpool fan, an Arsenal great and a columnist who saw one offender from each side, and the red card option and the sharper review panel are Ladyman’s ideas. Whether IFAB takes any of it up is the open question.

WRITTEN BY

George Howson

George Howson is a Futbol Chronicle contributor and accredited journalist with over 20 years of experience following international football. A member of the AIPS International Sports Press Association, George has covered matches at stadiums around the world, bringing deep knowledge and first-hand insight to every match report and analysis he writes.

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