Wolves and Sunderland drew 1-1 at Molineux after Dan Ballard was sent off for pulling Tolu Alokodare’s hair.
It looked like it was going to be an easy afternoon for the visiting side when Nordi Mukiele put Sunderland in the lead early on, but they were put on the back foot when VAR intervened to send off Ballard for pulling Alokodare’s hair.
The relegated Wolves were aiming for an equalizer, with Santi Bueno heading in Hugo Bueno’s corner corner, but neither team could score the winning goal. The home side came closest in stoppage time when Alokodare made a move over the crossbar.
There were boos at the final whistle, with the home supporters displeased with Rob Edwards and his substitutes. However, the failure to win is even more significant for Regis Le Bris and Sunderland, who missed out on the chance to break into the European squad. They finish the day in 12 days.
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Dan Ballard is given a red for this hair pull, leaving Sunderland with 10 men.
“You can’t protect a striker with long hair.”
This is not the first time a player has been sent off for pulling Arokodare’s hair. Everton’s Michael Keane was previously given a red card for the same offense against the Wolves striker. These reds are the theme of the Premier League season.
“We understand the rules. Paul Tierney is a great referee, but it’s difficult to enforce the rules,” coach Le Bris said in the post-match press conference.
He added: “It’s very difficult to understand because I don’t think it was an intentional or violent act. It was an aerial duel with a tall striker who is 1.98 or 1.99 meters tall and weighs around 100 kilograms. Ballard is also a big man. He does 20 aerial duels during the match. A lot of things can happen, but it was not intentional.”
“But if the rules are the rules, then maybe if you played against a long-haired striker, you wouldn’t be able to defend and you’d have problems. And that was more or less the case. They implemented the rules, but I think it’s a little difficult to digest.”
Edwards faces fan anxiety at Molineux
It was a tough afternoon for the Timberwolves coach, who expects his team to take advantage of the man advantage. The decision to withdraw Hugo Bueno was met with boos from fans and was accompanied by chants of him “not knowing what he’s doing”.
Edwards then described the call. “They love Hugo and so do we, but the rationale behind it was pretty clear. We wanted another forward on the pitch and we wanted to take care of him. He hasn’t been fully fit all week and hasn’t trained enough all week.”
The Wolves manager had previously said he would always applaud fans at the end of games, but chose not to do so. “I was annoyed, but I thought I wasn’t going to provoke it any further. I didn’t want to anger the ground any further, so maybe that’s why,” he explained.
“We understand the situation at the moment. We’ve just been relegated, bottom of the league, down the table, drawn against 10 players and lost three games in a row. There’s a lot of anger around us, but I’m willing to accept that.”
“We knew going into this it was going to be really, really tough. We knew that at some stage we were probably going to be in a situation like this. Why do we go through it? Why do we do that? But when we can turn things around, it’s going to be even more rewarding.”
