Neill appeal - 19 Feb

Last updated : 20 February 2002 By Matt
Confrontation: Saturdays match...
Neill was given his marching orders by referee Graham Barber 20 minutes before the end of the tense cup-tie.

The red card will mean Neill missing three of Blackburn's vital Premiership games. With the Rovers beginning to get more and more desperate in their battle to stay in the premiership, the club are expected to ask the authorities to reverse the decision.

The one bright spot, however, is that the suspension will kick in in 14 days time meaning Neill will still be available for next weekend's Worthington Cup Final against Spurs.

Souness was furious at the decision and had to be restrained by stewards and police at the end of the game to prevent a confrontation with the match official. He left no one in any doubt that he believed the referee had got it wrong!

Later he said: "Maybe the time has come when we should use video evidence, immediately after it happened, with someone sat in the stand with watching a video replay.

"The technology is available now and with the right guidelines it could be used to review things like sendings-off which would only take ten or 15 seconds to be decided."