Former top flight referee Graham Poll doesn’t agree with the suggestion that Mike Dean seeks the limelight but admitted Feghouli’s challenge was not worthy of a red card.

“Replays showed that both players were equally culpable as Jones wrapped his legs around Feghouli’s,” Poll wrote in the Daily Mail. “Such decisions are crucial and Dean, one of the select group’s most experienced referees, knows that.”

“Referees aren’t on the field to be popular, they are there to show the courage of their convictions and give what they see. They are also not supposed to guess or appear to seek the limelight. Dean, as I wrote after his last game, is the referee happiest to take the biggest decisions and this was no exception. He will have believed he was right but when he watches this back he will know and accept that he was wrong.”

Another former official, Mark Halsey, added in The Sun: “He has misread the challenge and the incident. It’s a key match decision which totally changed the course of the game.”