Everton boss Sean Dyche slams VAR 'slow-mo' following Calvert-Lewin red card

Everton striker sent-off for first time in his career in goalless FA Cup third-round match at Crystal Palace

Referee Chris Kavanagh with Everton's Seamus Coleman and Dominic Calvert-Lewin before showing a red card to Calvert-Lewin after a VAR review. Reuters

Everton manager Sean Dyche criticised VAR's use of "slow-mo" when reviewing a decision that resulted in a red card for Toffees striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin in the goalless FA Cup third-round tie at Crystal Palace.

Nathaniel Clyne went down wincing following a sliding tackle by Calvert-Lewin, who appeared to catch the Palace defender’s shin with his studs.

Referee Chris Kavanagh went to review the incident on the pitchside monitor and decided the contact was enough to dismiss the Everton striker, the first red card of his career.

Dyche, though, was again unimpressed by the VAR intervention.

“I think slow-mo shows a different picture,” he told ITV Sport.

“If you are going to slow-mo things, then you are going to have to slow-mo the penalty on Beto or what could have been a penalty.

“[Joachim] Andersen has got his arms clearly around him, cupping his body. He goes down and it is not given.

“So if you want to slow-mo everything, then you have got to slow-mo everything – you can’t just have it one for one and one for the other.

“At the end of it is minor contact. In live time, he doesn’t give everything, then you slow it down – and everything looks worse on slow-mo, we all know that.”

Dyche said Everton would consider whether to appeal the red card.

Palace boss Roy Hodgson could understand his counterpart’s frustration, but stopped short of criticising the decision to dismiss Calvert-Lewin.

He said: “I mean Sean comes from a type of football, was brought up in a type of football where those sort of challenges were pretty commonplace and they weren’t punished if people got the ball.

“We now live in a slightly different world I think, and that is if you go into challenges with a straight leg and you have a bit of intent behind it, there’s a risk.

“There was definitely no malicious intent from Calvert-Lewin, there’s no question of that, not from seeing it back, it’s just a situation of an interpretation these days of a challenge, and the interpretation unfortunately can be that if you’re straight-legged and your foot is off the ground as you go into a challenge it can be deemed a red card.

“So have I got sympathy for him? Yes I have.”