Fabregas frustrated by yellow card

Chelsea midfielder Cesc Fabregas was left frustrated after being booked for diving during yesterday’s 1-1 draw at Southampton.

The former Arsenal and Barcelona player believes that he was fouled in the penalty area by Saints defender Matt Targett and that it should have been a penalty.

Instead, referee Anthony Taylor booked Fabregas for diving, which the Spaniard puts down to “a bad day at the office” for the referee.

“There was definitely contact,” Fabregas told chelseafc.com.

“I don’t think the referee had the best game of his life but we’re all human and a bad day at the office can happen to anyone.

“That’s it, let’s not talk more about it, we have to talk about football.”

Blues boss Jose Mourinho was also frustrated by the decision and claimed that Chelsea are the victim of a diving campaign which is costing them points.

“In other countries where I worked before, tomorrow in the sports papers it would be a front-page scandal because it is a scandal,” he said after the match.

“I think it is a scandal because it is not a small penalty – it is a penalty like Big Ben.

“In this country – and I am happy with that, more than happy with that – we will just say that it was a big mistake with a big influence in the result.

“I am happy that it is this way, with respect for the referee. He made a big mistake like I make, like the players make sometimes.”

But Chelsea may be the authors of their own downfall in some respects as both Diego Costa and Willian were booked for diving against Hull.

Tigers boss Steve Bruce described a Gary Cahill tumble in the same match as “like something out of Swan Lake”, while West Ham manager Sam Allardyce pointed the finger at Blues defender Branislav Ivanovic for what he termed “going down looking for a penalty” on Friday.

However, Mourinho dismissed any notion of wrongdoing on the part of his players, saying:

“They are not incidents, they are not incidents. Of course (it has influenced the referee). That’s a campaign, that’s a clear campaign.

“People, pundits, commentators, coaches from other teams – they react with Chelsea in a way they don’t react to other teams.

“They put lots of pressure on the referee and the referee makes a mistake like this. We lose two points, Fabregas earns a yellow card.”

Mourinho believes this campaign has been ongoing since the first day of the season when Costa was booked for diving against Burnley and has called for wrongly-awarded yellow cards to be rescinded.

“The double punishment is something unbelievable,” he added.

“Anthony [should go to a] screen, see that he has made a mistake – he is a good guy, an honest guy.

“He writes ‘I made a mistake, let’s clean the yellow card for Cesc’. It should be a simple process.”

This season the Setanta Sports pack will show 71 live Barclays Premier League games and 35 exclusively live European Rugby Champions Cup games including key games for the Irish Provinces.