Mike Dean has admitted he was wrong not to call for the sending-off of Tottenham’s Cristian Romero against Chelsea in 2022 after Southampton defender Jack Stephens was dismissed for an identical offence.
Dean ended his spell in the Premier League at the end of the 2021-22 season, but was on VARduty at the start of the following campaign. In August 2022, Spurs defender Romero pulled the hair of Chelsea’s Marc Cucurellabut neither on-field ref Anthony Taylor or VAR official Dean considered it worthy of a red card.
Cucurella was at the centre of another such incident on Wednesday as Chelsea won at Southampton. Stephens’ hair-pull on the Spaniard was missed in real-time, but Tony Harrington sent him off following a VAR check.
Retired ref Dean was covering the match live as part of Sky Sports’ Soccer Special panel. Fellow panelist Paul Merson quizzed the 56-year-old on the difference between the offences, forcing him to admit he got it wrong two years ago.
“Unfortunately, I was involved in one of these incidents about three years ago,” Dean said. “I think someone pulled, I think Romero pulled Cucurella’s hair. I didn’t do it [send him off].
“But he’s clearly done it, he’s got to be sent off. It’s his second red card of the season. It has to be a sending off, it can’t not be.”
When pushed further by Merson, he said: “[Romero wasn’t sent off] because I got it wrong. And he’s [Stephens] been sent off.”
Stephens will now face a lengthy spell on the sidelines after picking up a second red card of the season. He was also sent off against Manchester United in September for a foul on Alejandro Garnacho.
Southampton were already 3-1 down when the centre-back clashed with Cucurella against Chelsea, and ended up conceding twice more before full-time. Saints manager Russell Martin tried to look for the positives as his team remains seven points from safety, suggesting they were in the game before Stephens’ dismissal.
“I learned a lot about some people,” Martin said. “Nathan Wood, James Bree and Joe Aribo were excellent – they have come in from not playing so much and been really outstanding and I’m proud of them for that.
“Some of the football that we played at 11 v 11 was amazing and we should have been 1-0 up. We conceded such poor goals but the response was brilliant and we were so in the game until a big moment [Stephens’ red card] changed it.”
