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Fernando Torres and Jan Vertonghen were involved in some back and forth during Saturday's match, and Torres took things too far when he gouged at the face of the Belgian defender. While at first I had assumed Torres had been booked for the incident, The Daily Mail has been led to believe that Mike Dean missed the incident entirely:
Sportsmail understands Mike Dean showed Torres his first yellow card for a trip on Spurs defender Vertonghen, not for raising his hands in the confrontation which followed. None of Dean’s assistants saw the flashpoint and the referee will report these facts to the FA’s disciplinary department today.
If this is accurate, Torres will almost certainly be disciplined for the ill-advised scratch/nose pick of the Tottenham defender. I'd have to assume it will be three games for violent conduct, though whether that will be in addition to the game he gets for seeing red or simply upping the single game to a trio will be interesting. Personally, I think it would make the most sense to simply tack a pair of additional games onto his mandatory suspension, as the second yellow never would have happened had Dean seen the incident in question.
Either way, it's a shame that Torres has gone and done something this stupid when he's playing about as well as he ever had for Chelsea. I'd get used to the idea of Torres not being available for domestic matches for the next few weeks, as that was a pretty clear red card offense that even the FA couldn't miss. Only Fernando Torres could manage to disappoint when playing some of the best football I've seen from him in years. Well done Fernando, well done indeed.