The FA have confirmed Adrian's sending off and subsequent three match ban with a brief statement on their official website:
"A claim of wrongful dismissal submitted by West Ham United in relation to Adrian has been unsuccessful following an Independent Regulatory Commission hearing earlier today. The goalkeeper was dismissed for serious foul play during the game against Leicester City on Saturday (15 August 2015).Therefore, the player's three-match suspension, which is the standard penalty for this offence, remains with immediate effect. For a club to be successful with a claim of wrongful dismissal, it must prove to an Independent Regulatory Commission via written and/or video evidence that the match referee made an obvious error."
This is extremely bad news for West Ham fans, although it may hasten the signing of RobGreen from QPR, the player himself has apparently been tweeting about his imminent arrival at the Boleyn. - Ed
Comments
It's not good enough that one
It's not good enough that one should have to show an obvious error. A 3 match ban is a huge punishment if the foul was unintentional, which I think this was. Why not have an experienced group of football people give their opinions, and take a vote? Mind you, Randolph is clearly not Premier League quality, so at least we will be getting a better keeper out of it. But it still sucks.
Wrong decision
It was the wrong decision for Adrian to go up for a set piece, especially against a team like Leicester who were hitting us hard breaking rapidly out of defence. Adrian showed he has nothing to contribute in attack and leaving the goal undefended encourages the opposition to break out and score a cheap goal.
I hope Slaven instructs Adrian to keep to defending his goal in future.
Sign of things to come if you
Sign of things to come if you ask me. The standard of refereeing has already been poor across the board this season and we're only 2 weeks in. How he failed to award the penalty first half was immense. To make a 2nd error equally as bad with potentialy equal consequences is unforgivable. Still he'll be back in the prem next week thinking he's an elite referee, blinded by his own shortcomings but backed to the hilt by the spineless FA and Premier League bodies. Non football people have no reason to be making such decisions if they can't see past the fact that it's a fast paced contact sport for quality athletes. Having them refereed by morons and judged by their moron peers makes a mockery of the sport.
Unfortunately true
Apart from Arsenal v West Ham, every game I have watched so far this season has been decisively influenced by incorrect refereeing decisions. This is something else we can thank Sepp Blatter for as he is supposed to be blocking the introduction of TV reviews.
Surprised
West Ham even appealed. It was a straight red in my eyes and I have no complaints and Bilic said himself that he wouldn't appeal the decision after the match. Latest news is that Green won't be coming as the owners don't want to pay his wages. This is why we have lost Jussi and we have a muppet of a goalkeeper as back up. Randolphs wages were cheap for a reason so we can all stop whinging on that count. The next step is to see if the moths accumulating in Gold and Sullivans wallet cost us a striker.