Cucurella hair pull puts Saints man down in rout

Southampton defender Jack Stephens was shown a straight red card for pulling the hair of Chelsea‘s Marc Cucurella in the opening half of their Premier League game on Wednesday.

Bottom-of-the-league Southampton were 3-1 down when Stephens committed the offence as the players gathered in the area for a corner kick, and after referee Tony Harrington took a look at the VAR screen they were down to 10 men.

Southampton managed to maintain the scoreline for most of the remainder of the game before Chelsea added goals from Cole Palmer and Jadon Sancho to secure a 5-1 victory.

Cucurella is no stranger to having his long hair tugged, although the offender has not always been punished. In 2022, Cristian Romero of Tottenham Hotspur committed the same offence on the Chelsea defender but escaped a red card.

The Video Assistant Referee that day, Mike Dean, later admitted he had made a mistake in not asking the referee to take a look.