Stephen Warnock fuming with decision involving Nottingham Forest, former ref agrees with him

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Nottingham Forest paid tribute to Taiwo Awoniyi as they claimed a vital 2-1 win over West Ham at the City Ground.

Goals from Morgan Gibbs-White and Nikola Milenkovic settled the tie at the London Stadium, with a late goal from Jarrod Bowen jangling the nerves for Forest as the game dwindled to a close.

Nuno Espirito Santo would have been delighted to see his team bounce back from the disappointment of dropping points against Leicester City last time out, with Forest’s quest for Champions League football going to the final day.

Forest now face Chelsea at the City Ground in the final game of the 2024/25 campaign, knowing that a victory could see the team squeeze into the Champions League for next season.

The Reds will be missing Awoniyi, however, with the player needing emergency surgery on a ruptured intestine and being placed in an induced coma to aid his recovery last week.

• READ MORE: Gary Lineker hails Nottingham Forest star

Dermot Gallagher and Stephen Warnock agree on Nottingham Forest incident

It might have been over a week ago, but the debate rumbles on over the incident that led to Awoniyi needing surgery to repair a very serious injury.

Gallagher thinks he’s already noticed a shift in the assistant referees when it comes to flagging for offside, suggesting that the FA Cup Final saw the match officials take a different approach to things.

Gallagher told Ref Watch: “I think it’s interesting what they’ve done is they’ve allowed it to go on but the referees, I feel have spoken about this because in the FA Cup Final, the decisions seemed to be given a lot quicker. I think there was a mood change.”

Warnock did go a step further and claimed that it’s simply unacceptable for a player to receive an injury like Awoniyi, calling for the powers that be to now take action on this scenario.

Warnock added: “I think get the flag up. We’ve said this for years, that someone will end up injured, and it’s unacceptable that we have a situation where a player ends up in a coma. Completely unacceptable. I don’t blame the AR by the way, I blame what they’re being asked to do.”

Power must be given back to the referees

The decision to let assistant referees keep the flag down in the event of a goal being disallowed is pretty nonsensical and needs to cease immediately, following the Awoniyi incident.

There is no blame associated with Sian Massey-Ellis after the injury sustained by Awoniyi and instead, the finger should be pointed at whoever decided this was a good idea when players are clearly offside.

With VAR now being in place for four years, we’re still no clearer to a perfect situation with the technology and this simply highlights another grey area that is blighting the sport.

Awoniyi has the best wishes of everyone at Nottingham Forest and hopefully, he can recover accordingly and enjoy a solid pre-season where he stays injury free.