Newcastle United's Carabao Cup win over Spurs threw up a couple of controversial moments
Tottenham Hotspur were left unhappy with referee Chris Kavanagh after they were dumped out of the Carabao Cup by Newcastle United on Wednesday night.
The Magpies eased to a 2-0 victory thanks to goals from Fabian Schar and Nick Woltemade in each half. That set up a quarter-final clash with Fulham on December 16/17.
Schar's goal, in particular, had a whiff of controversy about it with Spurs players livid with the ref after he at first delayed the taking of a corner kick to allow defender Djed Spence to put his boot back on and tie his laces, only to then not give the player time to get back into position once he had finished.
Sandro Tonali swung over the kick which was headed home by Schar - ironically, the player Spence was due to be marking.
Spurs players, led by Richarlison, surrounded Kavanagh and boss Thomas Frank admitted after the game that he was extremely unhappy about the action.
"Yeah, I think that was clear," Frank said. "I think for me, we conceded two goals because of two mistakes, in my opinion.
"Unfortunately, the ref was part of the mistake in the first one. I'm not saying there's things we can't do better, but his boot is off, we need to tie his shoelace and tie his boot. And you can clearly see on the footage afterwards that the whole boot is off, so we need to do it.
"And it's minute 23, it's not like we delayed the game for 10 minutes and we have one goal up. It's common sense to allow him time to get in.
"So as soon as he had the boot on, the ref let it go. And then, to make it perfect, Djed's man he had to mark was Schar, that scored. So that's why we were very animated. I think that was the biggest one. I think the rest was fine.
"There's always small bits you can be irritated about, but it's very difficult to ref a game. But this, for me, was unfortunately a big mistake. And then we made a mistake ourselves on the second one. So small margins decided the game today."
Former Newcastle and Spurs striker Les Ferdinand, however, disagreed with Frank and the Tottenham players, insisting they should have been smarter in that instance.
He told ITV Sport: "You can see [Pedro] Porro’s got his hand in the air to try and get the referee’s attention. Go and stand on the ball and walk back from it slowly.
"The referee might come over to you and say, ‘Get away from the ball’. Walk away slowly.
"You can’t do that [what Spence did] and expect the referee to stop and say, ‘No, he’s putting his boot back on."
Late in the game, there was an almighty scuffle after Joelinton's lunge on winger Mohammed Kudus prompted an angry reaction from the Ghana star. A bust-up ensured with Xavi Simons and Dan Burn getting involved, while Aaron Ramsdale raced from his goal to calm down proceedings.
Joelinton and Kudus were both shown yellow cards - the Brazilian for his tackle and Kudus for his reaction. Former Premier League ref Mark Clattenburg claimed that it was 'unfair' that Kudus was also booked, ignoring the fact that the player had reacted aggressively in shoving Joelinton in the chest.
Clattenburg told TBR Football: “It does not feel fair that Joelinton, for his challenge, was given the same punishment as Mohammed Kudus. Joelinton’s challenge was certainly reckless and was a scissor action which tripped his opponent.
“To meet the criteria of a red card, however, there needs to be some force and malice used which this challenge lacked and therefore did not endanger the safety of his opponent. Nevertheless, it does not feel right that Kudos received the same punishment after being on the end of that tackle.”