Don't blame officials for Taiwo Awoniyi's injury - football's lawmakers owe him an apology

Nottingham Forest's dramatic 2-2 draw against Leicester on the weekend has spawned a whole host of talking points, with Taiwo Awoniyi's serious injury and the apparent row between Nuno Espirito Santo and Evangelos Marinakis overshadowing the result itself.

which covered the and addressed the fallout over Marinakis' decision to storm onto the pitch. Awoniyi was on his abdomen after crashing into the post while trying to score.

The fact the move was pointless, with Anthony Elanga offside in the build-up, made the severity of the injury all the more concerning.

Here Mirror Football's Mike Walters answers four of the biggest questions stemming from the remarkable incident-packed match.

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Are we building up to one of the biggest and most lucrative matches EVER in Premier League history, with Nottingham Forest playing Chelsea on the final day and the winner reaching the Champions League, or will it be all over by then?

In an ideal world, Forest’s final-day showdown with Chelsea at the City Ground will be a shoot-out for Champions League snouts in the trough - winner takes all.

But Forest’s form has tailed off alarmingly, and 12 months ago they flunked their audition in this fixture on the penultimate day of the season.

A point would have sealed their Premier League safety and sent Luton down, but from 2-1 up with 10 minutes to go they managed to lose 3-2 and, mathematically, had to avoid defeat at Burnley on the final day.

Forest are back in Europe for the first time in 30 years. The game has changed so much since then – what is the biggest challenge they will face when they return, whatever competition they are in?

The glamour and prestige of going on a European tour may be great fun for supporters who want their passports stamped in exotic locations.

But it stretches squad depth to the limit, and it is hard to sustain a sound Premier League campaign when you are picking up injuries on the continent.

And if Forest’s lot is the Thursday Night Smorgasbord League, as seems likely, there is little glamour in trailing home from a far-flung corner of Europe at five in the morning and trying to get your head round a game on Sunday.

Having said that, what an achievement - from promotion and two relegation battles to Europe in the space of three years. Up in the celestial directors’ box, Old Big ‘Ead would approve of their resurgence.

Nuno Espirito Santos seemed to play it very cool with his owner on Sunday when Evangelos Marinakis came on to the pitch after the game. Is a good owner-manager relationship key to a football club’s success?

At any football club, the most important relationship is the axis between manager and owner/chairman. It’s one of former Manchester United boss Tommy Docherty’s great one-liners from his time in charge of Aston Villa in the late 1960s.

When ‘Deadly’ Doug Ellis told him, “Don't worry, Tommy, I am right behind you,” Docherty replied, “I would rather have you in front of me, Mr Chairman.”

Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis may be an unpredictable firebrand, but he is nobody’s fool. Nuno was his choice after sacking Steve Cooper, and he has taken Forest into Europe.

Should football look at their rules again over clear offsides. If the flag had been raised as in the past, the Taiwo Awoniyi incident would not have happened?

We told them this would happen, but they wouldn’t bloody listen.

Players, managers, pundits, fans, the tea lady and the groundsman’s cat all warned that a player was going to be seriously injured one day because the linesman didn’t put his flag up for offside immediately.

Now Taiwo Awoniyi is lying in an induced coma with a ruptured intestine, after his horrific collision with a post at the Trent End on Sunday, football’s law-makers can admire their dirty work. Awoniyi was trying to get on the end of an Anthony Elanga cross but his efforts were futile because Elanga was offside when he collected the ball in the first place.

If the flag had gone up immediately, the big Nigerian striker would have been spared his potentially fatal injury and he wouldn’t be lying in a hospital bed now.

Don’t blame the lino – she was only applying the laws of the game as instructed. Blame the clots who impose these daft rules, even though none of them has ever played the game to a reputable standard.

That’s the problem with IFAB – whoever they are. They might know the laws of the game inside out, but they wouldn’t recognise potential danger to a player’s safety like the needless Awoniyi episode if it jumped up and bit them on the gluteus maximus.

When an immediate goalscoring opportunity is likely to occur, assistant referees have been told to keep their flags down until the passage of play is complete. If a goal is scored, the incident can then be reviewed by VAR officials.

Personally, I’d rather dispense with the VAR jobsworths and keep players safe. Next time you’re at a match, and a flag goes up painfully late because of this stupid rule, listen to the groans from the crowd. The fans all hate it, but who’s listening to them?

In the meantime here’s the bottom line, the only thing that really matters: Get well soon, Taiwo.

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