Five talking points from the weekend's Premier League matches

Anthony Taylor and the Law 12 saga

When Samuel Eto’o nicked the ball off the Cardiff keeper and helped his side score, he sent millions of fans and pundits alike, scurrying across the FIFA rulebook, to see if that was legal. And after a lot of searching, it is fair to say that what he did wasn’t legal and the goal shouldn’t have stood, according to Law 12. The law clearly states that the goalkeeper cannot be touched when he is in control of the ball, which he clearly was, in that case, when he was bouncing it on the ground.

After the game, the referee Anthony Taylor told the Cardiff manager that he was aware of the rules and that he believed that David Marshall “dropped” the ball, when all evidence points to the contrary. Whilst it is easy to blame the referee in this case, in his defense, he was miles away from where the incident happened and the only thing he could have done, was consulted with his officials before making a call, which he didn’t do. Apart from that, this is certainly one incident which has made a lot of people aware of such a rule, which wasn’t the case before. And it should be treated as human error and nothing more than that.