Daniel Podence, the Wolves star, has been accused of spitting at Nottingham Forest forward Brennan Johnson during a recent match. The incident occurred during a spiky encounter at the City Ground, which saw both sets of players push and shove each other around after a collision between Diego Costa and Cheikhou Kouyate with time running out. Podence appeared to spit in the direction of Johnson’s face, causing the Forest star to grab his face and turn towards the referee. The incident was reviewed by VAR, but referee David Coote was not told to go to the monitor, and VAR ruled that there had been no infringement.
Speaking on talkSPORT, Trevor Sinclair said: “It looked like that [he spat]. There was a little coming together between Diego Costa and Cheikhou Kouyate. Quite a few of the players came around and just on the angle of the camera, it looked like he puffed his cheeks and blew in the direction of Brennan Johnson. Johnson put his hand on his face as if to say, ‘referee, what’s going on?’” Leon Osman was also adamant that Podence did spit and said: “All the motions were there. The puckering of lips and movement with the face by Daniel Podence, the reaction from Brennan Johnson, but he’s obviously gotten away with it. You hope it wasn’t what it looked like, as that is one of the worst things you can do to a fellow professional on the football pitch.”
Forest manager Steve Cooper was guarded when asked about the moment but did indicate that there could be retrospective action. He said: “I’m not going to comment on it publicly. I’m sure there will be next steps.” The FA has confirmed that they are investigating the incident, according to The Athletic.
Podence spoke after the match, which ended 1-1 where he grabbed the equaliser, but did not talk about the incident. He said: “I’m very happy with that and a goal today. We had a difficult match in front of us and we got one point in the relegation fight. It was very frustrating because we had a lot of the ball but they had the best chances. I was looking at the time and we had a lot of time to win this game. I played against Forest last year in the cup and this year the matches have been brutal in terms of decisions, which are very complicated against us and make us feel frustrated. Morgan has a bit of joy to provoke our fans. It’s difficult to explain this rivalry.”