The three lost points from Ewood Park in midweek will stick in the craw for a good while, especially as we don't have a match this weekend and can therefore brood on it for longer, but at least the controversy over George Boateng's red card has been nipped in the bud.
The decision to send the Dutchman off for what was little more than an accidental clash of heads was met with anger and utter disbelief at the time, criticised by both managers immediately afterwards and termed as "unfortunate" by pundits commenting upon television pictures.
The Tigers appealed instantly and fair play to the disciplinary committee at the FA who took one look at the incident, in which Boateng raised his arms in an aerial duel with Morten Gamst Pedersen but connected only with his head, and rescinded the red card immediately.
Boateng's three match ban no longer applies, and the break he clearly needed will now again be just the ten days dictated by the fixture list. He many not have played again for more than a month had the suspension stood, given the further gap in our fixture list caused by Aston Villa's presence in the Carling Cup final in a fortnight, originally earmarked as the weekend of their visit to the KC.
The Tigers don't always get the rub of the green from the FA, with this week also seeing us handed a sterner financial penalty than Arsenal after the Samir Nasri-Richard Garcia kerfuffle in December at the Emirates in the Premier League.
The punishments meted out suggest that City were the sore-losing perpetrators instead of the victims. Exactly why the Tigers were deemed twice as culpable as Arsenal (the Gunners were fined £20,000 and City £40,000) remains a mystery, which one can only conclude was down to simply favouring the bigger, more powerful, more influential club.
Looking through patient eyes at the incident again, Nasri was the violent aggressor while City's players merely protested and protected. Later, upon the issue of charges, the Gunners denied everything but were found guilty, whereas City accepted their role straightaway and didn't waste anyone's time. Yet we get the beefier sanction from the authorities. It simply doesn't add up.
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