Lampard says hair pull on Yirenkyi should have brought Coventry penalty

Coventry City manager Frank Lampard believes his side should have been awarded a penalty after Everton defender James Tarkowski tugged Caleb Yirenkyi’s hair during Friday’s 3-1 defeat at Hill Dickinson Stadium.

The incident came in the first half, before Coventry took the lead through Yann Gboho after the break. Everton came back to win, with Thierno Barry scoring twice and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall adding a late goal.

Rules on hair-pulling were relaxed this season: contact does not automatically mean a foul or a red card, and officials consider whether excessive force was used. Lampard said officials had judged the pull insufficient, but he believed it was a foul and should have brought a penalty.

“I think if the rule remains that it’s a foul, so I felt it was a foul,” he said. He added that he understood why the incident would not warrant a red card.

Lampard also disputed two other decisions. He thought Vitalii Mykolenko had fouled Taiwo Awoniyi before Coventry scored, but replays showed the contact was outside the penalty area. He also argued that Barry handled the ball before scoring his second goal; VAR official Timothy Wood ruled it was not an offence.

Lampard said he could not claim all three decisions should have gone Coventry’s way, but that one or two could have changed the game. Everton manager David Moyes said the ball had not hit Barry’s hand and criticised the revised hair-pulling rule.