Why Chelsea’s Moises Caicdeo was sent off but Tottenham’s Rodrigo Bentanur escaped

Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca is disappointed. Not about Moises Caicedo’s dismissal against Arsenal on Sunday, but about what he did perceived as a lack of consistency.

You can see his point. Last month, Tottenham midfielder Rodrigo Bentancur received a yellow card for a foul on Reece James, which the video assistant referee (VAR) accepted. However, when Caicedo was cautioned for making a similar intervention against Mikel Merinos, a red card was issued.

“It’s a red card, but why wasn’t Bentancur’s card against Reece (James) away at Spurs a red card?” Maresca asked.

“So we, as a manager, have a hard time understanding why they decided differently.

“Moises is a red card, yes. Bentancur’s is a red card, yes. Why don’t they give him a red card? We just have a hard time understanding it. The truth is that it is a red card. So why do they treat it differently?”

So what was the difference?

The results partly depend on who the VAR is; This makes consistency very difficult.

No two fouls are the same and there are subtle differences between the two. Bentancur was just really coming in, while Caicedo jumped a bit and the point of contact was a bit higher.

Merinos also had a visible buckle on his ankle, something VAR looks for to indicate excessive force, and his boot was slid back onto the pitch.

In the Bentancur case, the Premier League’s Major Match Incidents (KMI) Panel backed Bentancur’s yellow card by four votes to one, unanimously supporting no VAR intervention “on the grounds that the difficulty was low, just a little late and reckless”.

The KMI panel will back the decision to send off Caicedo, but it won’t be long before another such tackle is considered a mere yellow card.

Since the start of the 2023-24 season, the KMI Panel has recorded 12 errors in serious foul play investigations.