Reading's Nelson Oliveira has expressed his unhappiness with the lack of punishment for Aston Villa's Tyrone Mings, claiming that the player's stamp at the weekend could have blinded him.
The on-loan Bournemouth defender stood on Oliveira's head during a Championship clash last weekend, with the Portuguese player suffering severe facial injuries as a result. The incident went unpunished by the referee at the time, and as it was seen by the match officials, no retrospective punishment can be taken.
It is unclear if the challenge was intentional, but it was certainly nasty. Mings has previous form for stamping, having been banned for five games in 2017 for standing on the head of Zlatan Ibrahimovic. He also claimed that was an accidental coming together, but it seems interesting that such similar occurrences would involve the same player.
Oliveira is unsure if Mings' actions were malicious, but he certainly feels that he could have avoided making contact with the head should he have chosen to do so. Speaking to The Mirror, the Portuguese questioned if there would be such leniency granted were a higher profile player at the receiving end of the challenge.
I'm not saying he did it on purpose but he could have avoided me 100 per cent.
He texted me to apologise. At the time I hadn't seen the video. Football is an aggressive game but that is not football. It could have been much worse; I could be blind.
I'm not criticising the referee because it's not my job. It's up to the FA to look at these things.
If the same thing happened to Harry Kane what would happen? How would the FA look at it when his career could have been over? It's a question to ask people and the media.
If this happens in Portugal they would look at it again. You see UFC fighters come off looking better than me.
