BBC Sport pundit Micah Richards has defended Nottingham Forest star Brennan Johnson after he was shown a yellow card for simulation yesterday.
Just two minutes after opening the scoring against Wolves, Johnson felt he should have had a penalty.
The referee Chris Kavanagh instead decided that the Forest star had dived and cautioned him for simulation.
It probably wasn’t a spot kick but ultimately, there is no way that Johnson dived to try and con the match official.
Richards agrees and he used last night’s Match of the Day as a chance to defend the 21-year-old Forest youngster.
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He said: “The referees as we’ve said, have been brilliant today but I think they got this one wrong.
“I don’t understand why he’s been booked for diving. He trips on his own foot, but Toti clips him as well. It might not be enough for a penalty, but he’s certainly not dived.”
Forest didn’t get a penalty on this occasion and later in the game, Adama Traore felt he was unlucky not to get a penalty too.
Overall, it wasn’t a bad performance from Kavanagh, although he did get the Johnson decision wrong.
BBC Sport pundit Richards rightly defends Johnson
Richards used to play as a defender so for him to defend Johnson, it must have been a pretty strange call.
It’s pretty clear looking at the coverage that although it wasn’t a penalty kick, it certainly wasn’t a dive by Johnson.
The 21-year-old has perhaps been punished because of his reputation. Johnson has been known to go down easily in the past and clearly that has played into Kavanagh’s thinking.
It was great to see Johnson on the scoresheet again during the game and he’s now in double figures for the season.
Forest will hope their star boy can keep firing as the season draws to a close and the Reds desperately need him.
It was nice of Richards to defend the Forest man and he was absolutely spot-on with this particular assessment.