I was emailed from a work 'colleague', don't know him & have never spoke to him ... (sounds abit of a dick, he often posts on the work intranet, 19 blah blah blah and signs his name followed by musc lord nelson branch, or something like that). Obviously got a bit of time on his hands and presumably emailed me afted seeing my intranet post (pic of Mancini smile with Joy of Six caption)
I watched and analysed the replay of the Johnny Evans "red card" incident several times last night (via the Yahoo web page). I have to make the following observation:
I noted that there was contact between Evans and Balotelli. This consisted of a "grab" of Balotelli's right arm by Evans, contact of which lasted approximately 1 second. Evans then released Balotelli's arm. This contact occurred specifically when both players were outside of the penalty area. Both players then advanced into the penalty area and Balotelli fell to the ground, approximately 1.5 seconds after Evans had released Balotelli's right arm.
I recall from university Physics units that I have studied in past years, that the laws relating to angular momentum apply in such cases (in systems where one body acts upon another), ergo;
As the contact between Evans and Balotelli was a "grab" and not a "push", then if the contact had any meaningful effect upon Balotelli's momentum, then he should have fallen backwards and to the right. Even if the contact was a "push" by Evans, then Balotelli should have fallen forward and to the left with immediate effect and not 1.5 to 2 seconds after the start of any contact. It is worth noting that Balotelli remains fully upright after Evans has released his arm and he (Balotelli) has taken one step into the penalty area. It is also worth noting that the ball by this time was not in a position from which Balotelli could have taken a shot on goal and that he must have been aware of that.
According to the letter of the law, Evans did commit a foul in grabbing Balotelli's right arm, but it has to be stated that Balotelli did exaggerate any effect that the contact had upon him to a signifcant degree. As such, I believe that the incident warranted nothing more than a yellow card for Evans (under the terms of "attempting to gain an unfair advantage"). On a different day, Balotelli could easily have received a yellow card himself under the terms of the same law.