Everton and Chelsea players acting like “children” so far, says ex-ref

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Former Premier League referee Mark Halsey has slammed the behaviour of some of the players in today’s Premier League clash between Everton and Chelsea.

Although Halsey is enjoying this tense encounter in terms of the entertainment on offer, he’s clearly unimpressed with how some of the players are conducting themselves, singling out Everton’s Seamus Coleman in particular.

It was 0-0 at half time, with the main incidents to speak of coming towards the end of the half, when tensions boiled over a bit in both teams.

Halsey praised Kevin Friend for the way he handled it, but slammed the childish behaviour of Coleman and others.

“It’s a cracking game so far, full of tension and incidents. As a referee in these games you’ve got to set your tolerance levels. If you set them too low you could have a lot of cautions and red cards,” Halsey told CaughtOffside.

“Some of the players are acting like children so far. Not every challenge needs to be a yellow card, and I think Kevin Friend is managing it well. It annoyed me seeing Seamus Coleman getting involved, there’s no need, let the referee do his job and calm things down.

“These games can be tense and it’s important for the referee to keep his head while everyone else around them loses theirs. He could maybe do with slowing the tempo down, slowing things down when it comes to free-kicks and just making sure everyone keeps their heads.”

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