On Sunday, Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero elbowed West Ham’s Winston Reid during City’s 3-1 victory. While Aguero didn’t seem to make full contact on Reid, it surely seemed like there was some sort of intent and caught Reid’s throat with enough of the elbow as he had to be subbed out.
Almost immediately, social media was full of tweets about how everyone would be more outraged if it was Diego Costa who threw the elbow or everyone making the same joke that The FA was going to retroactively ban Costa (occasionally Marouane Fellaini) three matches for Aguero’s elbow.
If Diego Costa threw his elbow the way Sergio Aguero did at Winston Reid, social media would have been ablaze with righteous indignation.
— Segun Agbede (@SegunThePundit) August 29, 2016
The media's reaction if Diego Costa did what Sergio Aguero did today! pic.twitter.com/KWJdsS8Iuj
— Baldy (@baldy984) August 28, 2016
https://twitter.com/thisisphilh/status/769972265123516416
If Costa had done what Aguero has today it would be on the front pages tomorrow. Retrospective action?
— Richard Keys (@richardajkeys) August 28, 2016
BREAKING: The FA have taken retrospective action after Sergio Aguero's elbow and banned Diego Costa for three games.
— Sky Blue Adam (@LuttSkyBlue) August 29, 2016
Okay, let’s get some things straight.
One, just because one player does something dirty that doesn’t result in absolving someone else for their own dirty play. Sergio Aguero elbowed Winston Reid and it was a dirty play. That is mutually exclusive from Diego Costa’s dirty play and it doesn’t make what Costa does look better just because someone else did something similar.
Two, yeah I agree. If Costa had thrown an elbow on Reid instead of Aguero, the media as well as social media would make a bigger deal. Why wouldn’t it be a bigger deal? This kind of scenario is what Diego Costa gets away with all the time. While he was retroactively banned three matches twice last season, Costa only received one red card all of last season. Ironically, that red card was for something he didn’t do, as it was found Costa did not bite Everton’s Gareth Barry. Aguero is no angel either and has had his share of dirty play over the years but it seems like it’s more newsworthy whenever Costa can get through a match without doing something dirty because he seems to do it all the time while Aguero can at least go a way longer without having to resort to underhanded tactics.
Three, just because Aguero didn’t get what was in my mind a deserved red, he very much should get a retroactive suspension for what he did. For selfish media related reasons, I wished the suspension wasn’t for the Manchester Derby because I feel it would take away from what is expected to be a highly competitive match. But the opponent for the next match obviously shouldn’t be taken into consideration whether to suspend someone so Aguero deserves to sit, probably for three matches. It’s been revealed Aguero is going to miss the international break because of a calf injury so regardless if he’s suspended or not, he may be out for the Manchester Derby anyway.
If there is going to be a case to be made for Aguero, you could possibly make an argument that Aguero was trying to get position on Reid for the header. I’m not going to make that argument because if he was really trying to get position, Aguero didn’t really make much of an attempt to get the header so that really showed to me that his elbow was intentional and deserved a red card plus suspension.
But having said that, Sergio Aguero is no Diego Costa. What Aguero did was a dirty act but a dirty act doesn’t necessarily deem someone as a habitually dirty player, which we have seemed to see out of Costa. Either way, neither of the things both players have done should remain in their soccer skillset. They are both way too talented to have to resort to dirty play in order to be the best in the Premier League.
