Excuses cannot be made for AC Milan’s defeat to Bologna, however, we can still scrutinise decisions made by the officials on Thursday night.
Speaking after the loss, Sergio Conceicao was, expectedly, animated, and raised the point about a few errors made by the officials, maybe not in the same way that Paulo Fonseca did a few months back, but a point still stands.
Time after time, poor decisions are made in games including Milan, which Zlatan Ibrahimovic has also spoken about with frustration.
On Thursday night, as Gazzetta dello Sport writes, there were a few high-level incidents that were wrongly viewed by the official on the pitch, as well as the VAR team.
Starting in the first half, Mariani missed a foul against Rafeal Leao by Casale, where the central defender swung his arms at the Portuguese, which should have been a booking, instead, the referee just blew for a foul.
Dan Ndoye attempted to appeal for a penalty against Strahinja Pavlovic, but the officials made the correct decision in this instance and didn’t listen to the pleas from the Swissman.
Just a minute later, Leao should have been on the receiving end of a cautioning for a similar instance as the Casale foul – swinging his arms out and connecting with Ndoye, but nothing was given.
Ndoye was involved once again in the half, this time in his own penalty area where Youssouf Fofana claimed to have been followed, but again, the right call was made as the force as not enough to send the Frenchman to ground for a spot kick.
Following the interval, Bologna’s leveller should have been ruled out for handball, given the ball cannoned off Fabbian’s arm. However, Castro’s goal was not ruled out with the referee and VAR agreeing that the incident was not extreme enough to change.
Also, questions were asked about the second goal, with a throw-in potentially being missed by the officials. Once again, the issue was missed and not questioned. A poor performance from the Rossoneri and the referees.
