Coventry City news from CoventryLive, including the promotion of last week’s referee Anthony Taylor back to the Premier League following a ‘punishment’ game at Preston.
Despite awarding another questionable penalty last Saturday against Coventry City, prominent Premier League referee Anthony Taylor will take charge of Chelsea’s game against Manchester City on Sunday.
Taylor was demoted to the Championship after scoring a penalty for Newcastle in a 2-2 draw with Wolves at Molineux last month. The decision was reviewed by the Premier League’s Independent Key Match Incidents Panel, which found it to be incorrect.
Taylor was promptly demoted and given charge of Preston’s game against the Sky Blues on Saturday as punishment for his gaffe. The FIFA-listed referee was embroiled in another controversy after awarding Preston a soft penalty after Kyle McFadzean was deemed to have dragged striker Milutin Osmajic down in the box, allowing Alan Browne to put the Lilywhites 2-1 up in the game, which City lost 3-2 at Deepdale.
Despite the fact that replays show McFadzean barely touched Osmajic, the body in charge of refereeing is pleased with Taylor’s performance and has promoted him back to the Premier League for Sunday’s game at Stamford Bridge. Jarred Gillett has also been named video assistant referee (VAR).
Taylor has become one of the Premier League’s most recognisable referees, having presided over some of football’s most important matches. His resume includes League Cup, Europa League, and Championship play-off finals, as well as two FA Cup finals.
Despite this, Taylor was ordered to referee the game between Preston and Coventry. Before Wolves’ game against Sheffield United last Saturday, Wolves manager Gary O’Neil joked about Taylor’s demotion. In Wolves’ 2-1 loss at Bramall Lane, another questionable refereeing decision was made against them.
O’Neil had this to say prior to the game: “I think Anthony Taylor’s doing the Championship game this weekend – that’s three referees who’ve been relegated on the back of refereeing us, so you need to be careful when you referee Wolves because you could end up getting relegated the following week!”
Although Taylor has received more criticism for giving Preston a penalty, Coventry manager Mark Robins did not criticise Taylor after the game last Saturday. “We didn’t do enough in the first half, and then we conceded a poor goal in the second half, which puts us on the back foot,” Robins said. “If we hadn’t done that, I think we could have won the game.”
