Said in an earlier reply, the only explanation that makes any sense is the ref thought was making up for leniency on Neil's earlier carded tackle (which was possibly worth a straight red). But if that was the case, the ref is just making up his own rules in the middle of the game. Still yet to hear anyone come up with a rational and fair explanation for it, just a lot of deflection about "everybody makes mistakes".
Part of the problem is that we’re all guessing because of the governing body policy never to allow the ref to explain and almost never to explain as a body.
So we can probably come up with plenty of suggestions that
might be true. Here’s five off the top of my head that would justify a card without thinking it was the worst single bit of dissent in the half on language alone that you couldn’t prove were wrong:
a) it was a ”last straw” booking after persistent whinging by Neil (should have given a warning but doesn’t have to);
b) it was a ”last straw” booking after persistent whinging by the team (should definitely have given a warning there);
c) he did give a warning of next time in the book (if they never explain, they won’t say) and that was the next time;
d) gave it because of the approach from distance, which the current guidelines have as a major aggravating factor, much more so than the actual words used;
e) weighed all the aggravating factors differently because the ones they look at aren’t the ones we think they should look at.
Of course, he may just have lost it and made a bad judgement call. I still think that’s a likely explanation. But if they did explain the logic we could at least look at it.
I kind of understand why they don’t explain as we as fans just aren’t receptive. You see this with the VAR stuff. If the decision is arguably weighted as per the guidelines we say the guidelines are shit. If the decision is unarguably correct as per the law we say the law is shit. We NEVER say, oh I see, you’re right, thanks for explaining I apologise for my ignorance. So why bother explaining? Chicken and egg really.