Thibaut Courtois hasn’t had a good day. Courtois hurt his knee in the warmup but was healthy enough to remain in the starting XI. Then the day went from bad to worse.
In the 52nd minute, Courtois went in hard on Bafetimbi Gomis and fouled him in the box conceding a penalty. The referee deemed that Courtois was the final man and thus received a straight red card and was sent off. Now that longtime Chelsea player Petr Cech is at Arsenal, Chelsea brought out new goalkeeper Asmir Begovic for the rest of the Swansea game and for the Manchester City game next week.
The main things to look at on the replay to determine if this was the right call. A) Was Gomis offside? No. B) Was Gomis fouled and was it in the box? It was a little theatrical but yes and yes. C) Was this a denial of a goal scoring opportunity? The ball goes away from the goal at the point of contact so this could be argued but I would say it was close enough to warrant that call. D) Was Courtois the final defender to justify the red card. This was close but it appeared Cahill hadn’t caught up to Courtois. All in all, looked like a good call and now Courtois gets a break to rest his knee.
