'Problems': Sunderland boss outlines long hair issue after latest controversy in Wolves draw

Wolves’ clash with Sunderland threw up another hair pulling incident that has divided fans and pundits.

Manchester United’s Lisandro Martinez and Michael Keane have both seen red for pulling the hair of another player this season - the latter being penalised against Wolves.

That was for an incident involving striker Tolu Arokodare - and he was at the centre of the latest controversy at Molineux on Saturday.

Sunderland defender Dan Ballard was judged to have pulled the forward’s hair and after a VAR review, referee Paul Tierney was sent to the pitch side monitor.

And after viewing the replay - he sent Ballard off. Fans were left perplexed and even Wolves fans took aim at VAR.

Speaking after the game, Sunderland boss Regis Le Bris was confused over the sending off - and went on to explain that striker’s with long hair could be a problem for the defenders moving forward.

He said: “We understand the rule and Paul Tierney is a great referee, but the execution of the rule is very hard to digest because I don’t think it is intentional and violent conduct.

“We don’t want to be controversial, we are here to help the game, many people are watching the Premier League and we want to be clean in our behaviours, but football is football. It is a duel in the air and with a tall striker [who weighs] 100kg more or less, Ballard is massive as well, so the ball in the air 20 times in a game, many things can happen.

“If the rule is the rule, when you have a striker with long hair, you will have problems because you can’t defend. It was more or less the case. They executed the rule, but it’s a bit hard to digest.”