Former players defend Max Dowman over red-card incident

From the source

Source excerpt · Daily Cannon ↗

Arsenal’s Max Dowman received a red card against Fleetwood Town for his reaction to a heavy challenge in the dying minutes of the game. With Dowman going nowhere, facing towards his own goal, trapped next to the touchline, a Fleetwood player flew in to a sliding challenge to put the ball one yard over and out of play.

It was an exceedingly risky challenge for very little reward, and Dowman was clearly unhappy with it. He threw the opponent off his foot with a flick of his leg, which was apparently enough for a red card.

Dowman has since faced criticism for reacting to the bad challenge, with suggestions that he brought the dismissal on himself. But former Manchester City player Micah Richards has hit back strongly against those kinds of comments.