FA made right decision with Vidic

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If this morning’s papers were to be believed, then our title hopes were set to take a massive blow as they reported that Nemanja Vidic faced a 4 match ban for an elbow on Johan Elmander during Saturday’s game at Bolton.

It was reported that the FA would be reviewing the incident and a decision was to be made but today the FA has confirmed that no further action will be taken against the Serbian, and rightly so.

Last week Sir Alex labelled the Football Association’s disciplinary department as a “dysfunctional unit” and called for its over haul after they decided not to punish Liverpool’s Steven Gerrard for a blatant elbow on Portsmouth’s Michael Brown. So for Vidic to be punished for the aerial challenge on Elmander it would  not only have been a slap in the face to Sir Alex for his comments but also a blow to our title challenge.

With Rio Ferdinand already handed a 4 match ban (3 for his actual offense and 1 extra for a ‘frivolous’ appeal) but no extra match added to Arsenal’s Thomas Vermaelen’s ban after Arsenal decided to appeal his straight red against West Ham, Sir Alex was already  aggrieved and if Vidic had been banned it would have furthered aggravated him.

It is an arguement that has raged in football for a while but the fact remains that it is near impossible to jump and gain any leverage without using your arms. This isn’t to say you should be allowed to jump and throw your arms and elbows about with reckless abandon but Vidic hardly did that.

The mere fact that it was thought that Vidic faced a ban was ridiculous, Vidic is known to be quite dominant in the air and his challenge wasn’t any more malicious than any of the other headers he won during the game, it just so happened that Elmander was hurt in this one.

To me it was an unfortunate accident and now it has been put to bed we can focus on retaining our title.

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