Régis Le Bris criticises red card rule and defends Dan Ballard after Sunderland's draw with Wolves
Sunderland were held to a 1-1 draw against Wolves after Dan Ballard was shown a red card
Régis Le Bris has criticised the rule which saw Dan Ballard sent off for a ‘clear’ hair pull on Wolves striker Tolu Arokodare.
Sunderland were leading 1-0 midway through the first half at Molineux when referee Paul Tierney was advised to go to his monitor to review the incident. Ballard was shown a red and will now miss the rest of the campaign through suspension.
Le Bris defended Ballard and said that while he understood the law, he feels it needs addressing.
“We understand the rule,” Le Bris said.
“Paul Tierney is a great referee but the execution of the rule is hard. It's really hard to digest because I don't think it was an intentional and violent conduct. It was a duel in the air with a tall striker, 1.9 metres plus, 100 kilos more or less. Ballard is massive as well... 20 times in the game [they duel] many things can happen but it wasn't intentional. If the rule is the rule, probably when you face a striker with long hair, you'll have problems because you can't defend. It was more or less the case. They executed the rule but I think it's a bit hard to digest.
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Le Bris called for the rule to be reviewed but added that they wanted to focus on the strong response of his players to the adversity - particularly after the 5-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest a week previous.
“We are here to help the game, to help the Premier League. Many people are watching the Premier League.We want to be clean in our behaviours. But at the same time, football is football, so you have to create the rules to make it clean for the footballers as well. I think when it's not intentional, it was an accident, it's hard to execute the rules like it was intentional. Sometimes handball is the same, there is always a grey area, and probably with this rule, we are at that stage where you have to manage the rules to make it clean for different situations.
“I don't want to say too much about this because it wasn't the main topic of the game. For us, the most important thing was the reaction. The way we played, we showed that we are a good team, we can react after a strong defeat. That's the most important thing.”
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