As if the season hasn’t been hard enough for Sheffield United this season, the sight of Jack Robinson and Vini Souza going at it at Wolves was another low.
Chris Wilder didn’t really go into it too much and the incident seems to have blown over now as well.
However, at the time, it looked sloppy and it was clearly brought on from huge frustration at what has been an utterly dismal Premier League season for United.
Of course, we’ve seen in the past players be sent off for going at each other. And speaking on Sky Sports this morning, former PL referee Dermot Gallagher shared why the Blades duo didn’t quite see red.
Dermot Gallagher on Vini Souza and Jack Robinson scuffle
Speaking on Sky this morning, Gallagher admitted the pair could easily have been booked, albeit it wasn’t quite at the violence levels we’ve seen before.
“It’s very unusual isn’t it. It’s not quite Kieron Dyer and Lee Bowyer as we saw all those years ago. They’re aggressive towards other, clearly very angry with each other, but it’s not violent conduct. The VAR actually looked at it and decided it’s not violent conduct so that’s the end of the remit. I think the ref could easily have yellow carded both of them if he’d wanted,” Gallagher said.
Two ways to look at it
You can see both sides of the coin here, whatever side you choose to take.
On one hand, it is another bit of embarrassment from United who have been poor all season. It shines another negative light on things and once again we’re being spoken about for the wrong reasons.
On the flipside of that, as Wilder hinted, you could say this is just two passionate players who care about winning and are probably sick of getting battered each week.
Certainly, it did seem to spark a bit of a revival from United’s players and as long as things don’t boil over, Wilder won’t mind this one bit.
The key for United’s players is to channel that aggression into performances. They have a free hit next week against a rampant Arsenal team. That sort of aggression, then, could well help us.