Brandon Thomas-Asante should have been sent off for West Brom v Chesterfield – Jobi McAnuff
Brandon Thomas-Asante shouldn’t have been on the pitch to equalise at the death for West Brom against Chesterfield, according to Jobi McAnuff.
The Baggies had to come from behind against non-league opposition to snatch a replay at the death in the FA Cup third-round as Thomas-Asante scored twice on the day.
But while speaking on ITV Sport (8 January, 13:37) during punditry for the Cardiff-Leeds clash , McAnuff gave a quick mention to the game and claimed a prior incident should have seen the striker sent off.
“Brandon Thomas-Asante who should have been sent off for an incident,” he said.
“It was definitely an elbow so for Paul Cook and Chesterfield [it’s] a real tough one to take.”
Harsh
We’ll be the first to admit that the video doesn’t look great, but to give a red card for that would’ve been very harsh.
The defender is quite clearly tugging on Asante’s shirt to stop him getting into the penalty area ahead of him, and while the striker does lash out the intention isn’t to catch him in the face.
He’s trying to break free of the defender’s grip so that he can buy an extra yard, and if the first foul of grabbing him doesn’t happen then neither does the raised arm.
That’s not defending him, as he should know better than to last out in that way and know the risks that come with it, but just providing context.
In the end we were lucky he was on the pitch as his goal bought us a replay and saved us from embarrassment, but he certainly needs to learn from this and be more careful going forward now.
In other West Brom news, Thomas-Asante posts one-word message after what happened v Chesterfield