AFC Bournemouth aren’t too chuffed at the fact that Tyrone Mings has been hit with a 5-game suspension.
After the FA confirmed the defender would be banned for his alleged stamp on Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s head, the Cherries fired off a statement in which they made clear their ‘extreme disappointment’ at the decision taken by the FA’s Regulatory Commission.
Having questioned how the charges can be ‘proven’ without evidence that the incident was intentional, the statement adds that the club believe it was nothing more than an ‘accidental collision’ between the players.
They also point to Mings’ ‘excellent disciplinary record’, adding that the player has never received a red card and hadn’t received a yellow card since April 2015.
Hang on a minute. What? No yellow cards in almost two years? That *is* impressive…
A shame then, that the statement conveniently forgets to mention that Mings had missed the vast majority of that time with an injury…
.@afcbournemouth's statement highlights Mings not been booked since April 2015 (that's 12 League games) – hard to get booked when injured 🙄 pic.twitter.com/YUpmPPlMhD
— Josh Landy (@Josh_Landy) March 8, 2017
Mings unfortunately ruptured knee ligaments on his Premier League debut against Leicester in August 2015 and missed a year’s worth of football. After playing in an EFL Cup game against Preston in September of last year, he didn’t make another league appearance until December.
Since then, he has indeed completed seven booking-free appearances for his club.
As the tweet above points out, it’s difficult to pick up yellow cards when you’re not actually playing football.
Catch up with the latest episode of 888Sport Football Friday Live