Ted Hughes wrote:I don't think Barnes did what he did deliberately, but it was fucking clumsy & potentially dangerous, the way he followed through with his weight on that leg; he didn't need to. I don't think he meant to connect with such force, but I recon he hoped to give someone a bit of a kick.
The first one however, is a deliberate act & quite nasty & their manager is doing a Mourinho by defending it.
I have heard loads of different views on this and I tend to sway to this one.
Barnes was the one playing the ball, his follow through was perfectly natural, it wasn't particularly high and is normal for the type of pass he played.
Matic was the player coming in to block the pass (or make a tackle), he is the one that dived in, again, nothing really wrong with it.
What I do think is wrong is that Barnes did leave his foot in and leg straight which maximises the impact, I think he could have avoided it TBH. However, when you look at the movement and swing, its all a perfectly natural action that you see 100's of times a match.