Crystal Palace attacker Jordan Ayew has admitted he cannot understand why Thiago Silva was not sent off in Chelsea's 2-1 victory at Selhurst Park on Saturday.
Having dominated the early stages of proceedings, Palace were infuriated when Silva was shown just a yellow card by referee Chris Kavanagh despite the Brazilian evidently using his arm to prevent Ayew from bearing down on goal. VAR would also then uphold Kavanagh's decision.
The call became increasingly difficult to accept when the former Paris Saint-Germain star assisted Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang's equaliser. Ex-Eagles loanee Conor Gallagher would inflict further misery on Patrick Vieira's side when netting a last-gasp winner against his previous club.
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Whilst refraining from heavy criticism of officials, Ayew acknowledged that he could not understand why Silva had not seen red and given his marching orders. “I don’t understand – this year is really inconsistent,” he said, speaking to the club website. “I don’t understand but I don’t want to say too much. It’s the past and my objective is to focus on the next game.
“It’s the game, and the Premier League is ruthless. From my opinion, that was the turning point in the game and that’s it, it’s football.
Palace currently sit just one place above the relegation zone and despite results not being as strong as some would have hoped for, Ayew took encouragement from the performance and believes the team are improving.
The Ghana international claimed: “I think we were close. We deserved at least a point, but we are still a young team. We need to improve in a lot of things. We are improving but we need to improve quickly because the Premier League is ruthless.
“We did well, we controlled the game. It was a nice game for the spectator, but for us it’s a positive performance but it’s not the result we wanted. There is something missing, and we need to work hard.
“We should have taken a point. We weren’t far but we need to keep working and going in the right direction and pushing to win games. We just need to focus on our next game, try to win and we will take it from there.”
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