New Nottingham Forest head coach Nuno Espirito Santo said VAR should be allowed to intervene on second yellow cards after Willy Boly’s contentious dismissal against Bournemouth.

Boly was left incensed when he was dismissed 23 minutes into Nuno’s first game in charge by Rob Jones for what appeared a clean challenge on Bournemouth’s Adam Smith.

He caught the defender with his follow through after winning the ball, with his foot on the ground and facing down – but was still shown a yellow card for a challenge which arguably was not a foul at all, and was deemed “very unlucky” by former Premier League referee Mike Dean on Soccer Saturday.

Forest fought gallantly despite their numerical disadvantage and were seconds away from earning a point until Dominic Solanke popped up in the fifth minute of stoppage time.

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They were instead left to wonder what might of been, and Nuno to ask why VAR is not allowed to overturn second bookable offences as well as straight reds.

“It’s a frustration of knowing the approach of the referees is a bad one, and the law says because it’s two yellows you can’t reverse the decision,” he said. “That’s something they have to look at, because it doesn’t make sense.

“First of all, it’s the approach of the referee, that’s bad. Boly’s first yellow is fair, but it’s then a follow-through with the boot under the foot of the Bournemouth player – the approach should be more cautious, wait a little bit with the help of VAR, hold the decision and they will tell you.

“I think we, as Forest and our fans, especially our fans, deserve better decisions. They come here to see football and suddenly they see something which really changes the game, and the frustration is huge. We are all upset with this.”

Nuno revealed he had been into the referee’s dressing room to see Jones, but felt there had been no point in bringing up the incident after the game had finished.

“I asked our analyst to put the image of the red card, and I saw it over and over again to try to understand because I respect the job of the referees a lot. I saw it over and over, as many times as I saw it, I could understand it, what he saw. It was bad.

“I spoke to [Rob Jones] but what can I do? I respect them, I try to support them, but it’s a mistake, a huge mistake. At the end of the game, I hadn’t seen it – I went and shook his hand, he’s a referee I know. But when you see it, you get so much frustration. I didn’t talk about it with him.”

Dean: Law should be changed for next season

Dean, who served both as a Premier League referee and then dedicated VAR official before joining the Soccer Saturday team, said he hoped to see VAR involved in reviewing second yellow card infringements – and expected the PGMOL to follow suit from next season.

“VAR can’t look at it, but he’s played the ball and Smith’s landed on top of Boly’s ankle rather than the other way round. For me, he’s very unlucky,” he told the Soccer Saturday panel.

“You can’t get involved in cautionable offences. It’s got to be straight reds. I’d like to think it will be changed – that’s what they’re looking at for next year.”

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