Premier League referees\u2019 chief Howard Webb has clarified why Bruno Fernandes escaped dismissal after his clash with Phil Foden in Sunday\u2019s derby, describing the United captain\u2019s action as \u201cpetulant\u201d rather than \u201cviolent.\u201d<\/p>\n
The incident came in the first half when Foden went to ground over the ball and was struck twice by Fernandes\u2019 foot. Before referee Michael Oliver had acted, Foden responded by kicking out toward Fernandes\u2019s chest. That led to a red card for the City player, who was then taken away by teammates.<\/p>\n
Manchester City manager Enzo Maresca accepted that Foden had crossed the line, but believed Fernandes should have received the same punishment. \u201cPhil\u2019s card is a red card,\u201d Maresca told assembled media after the 1-0 defeat at Old Trafford, \u201cbut I also think the same action is a red card by Bruno.\u201d<\/p>\n
Webb disagreed, and on a new episode of Match Officials Mic\u2019d Up he said: \u201cI agree with the red card for Phil Foden,\u201d Webb explained. \u201cHe kicks out with force into the upper body of Bruno Fernandes.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, when you look at the footage, there is that petulant kick by Bruno Fernandes into the backside of Foden. It is more petulant than violent.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be violent conduct, it has to have excessive force or brutality. When you look at that, particularly in full speed, it doesn\u2019t have those elements. So therefore, this would be a yellow card offense.\u201d<\/p>\n
The judgement was always likely to remain with the officials on the field, as it was not the sort of subjective call VAR would overturn. But the larger controversy from the match centred on the goal awarded for City\u2019s winner, where Webb also acknowledged a mistake had been made.<\/p>\n
He said the VAR became too focused on Erling Haaland being onside and did not fully assess the role of Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez, who dived in front of Lisandro Mart\u00ednez from an offside position. United\u2019s manager was left frustrated, calling the decision: \u201cIt\u2019s as obvious as it gets.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Webb says Fernandes\u2019s kick was petulant, not violent, after the derby flashpoint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19438,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[238,179],"tags":[1836,59],"class_list":["post-19439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-city","category-manchester-united","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}