10-man Leicester City secured their 12th Premier League win of the season with a 2-1 win over Burnley on Saturday, keeping their hopes of finishing in seventh place and playing in next season’s Europa League alive.
Harry Maguire was shown his marching orders four minutes into the game, but the visitors took the lead nonetheless, with James Maddison grabbing the opener on the 33rd minute.
The hosts pegged them back five minutes later through Dwight McNeil, but Brendan Rodgers’ men had the last laugh as skipper Wes Morgan scored at the death to hand them all three points.
One of the game’s talking points was the decision of referee Mike Oliver to book Maddison for taking off his shirt while celebrating his goal.
The attacking midfielder revealed a message in memory of a young cancer victim Sophie, but he was still shown a yellow card anyway.
Oliver has received sticks from fans who felt he shouldn’t have booked the Leicester star, but the player himself has defended the ref.
Also, regarding tweets about Michael Oliver, he’s just doing his job and didn’t have a choice. He didn’t enjoy showing me a yellow and shared his condolences about the passing of Sophie which I thought was very respectful??
— James Maddison (@Madders10) March 16, 2019
“Michael Oliver had no choice but to caution James Maddison for removing his shirt,” Clattenburg told Sportsmail.
“There are occasions, such as this, when people will say a booking is unfair. The player, however, has accepted Michael’s position. If Maddison merely lifted his shirt to show the message but kept it below his head, that would not be a caution.
“Instead, the referee would have mentioned it in his match report for the FA to deal with. I am sure under these circumstances the FA would have warned the player and no sanction would have followed.”
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