Having watched yesterday's helping on the box, and seen a manager defend his player's elbowing of an opponent as 'unintentional', it occurs to me that we have an inconsistency.
If a keeper comes out in a one-on-one and arrives a fraction late, the attacker will take the opportunity to go down if he can manage to stumble over the keeper. Now, in these circumstances, it must be obvious that the keeper's contact with the striker was unintentional. In fact he would be doing is best to avoid contact, while making what is a vain attempt to reach the ball.
The usual outcome is 1) the keeper is sent off, 2) a penalty is awarded, 3) the keeper receives a suspension, benefiting other team(s) not involved in the match.
If the keeper's intention is irrelevant to the punishment, shouldn't the elbower's intention be equally so? In which case, why is the manager wasting his breath defending him? As it turns out, the player is to be charged since the referee has admitted to not seeing the incident, but if it had been at our level, then the odds are that no camera would have picked up the evidence for a charge and so he would have got away with it.
