Jean-Philippe Mateta had his “life endangered” in a challenge from Millwall goalkeeper Liam Roberts that left the Crystal Palace striker with a head injury, his club’s chairman Steve Parish said.
Mateta was given oxygen on the pitch following the challenge in Saturday’s FA Cup fifth-round tie, before being taken off on a stretcher from the field of play in a neck brace and being directly taken to an ambulance, with play stopped for over 10 minutes.
Millwall’s Roberts was shown a straight red card after the video assistant referee (VAR) recommended on-field referee Michael Oliver to review the decision, after the goalkeeper was initially not punished for the incident.
“He has a bad gash behind his ear and a head injury, he’s in hospital and we hope for the best,” Parish told BBC Sport at half-time.
“There’s a lot of emotion in football but we need to talk about that challenge, I’ve never seen a challenge like it in football. The goalkeeper is 30 years old, and that is the most reckless challenge on a football pitch I have ever seen.
“He needs to have a long hard look at himself, that lad, because he’s endangering a fellow professional, maybe even his life, with a challenge like that.
“It’s very difficult for me to talk about the rest of the game because we are worried about JP and it was just a terrible, terrible challenge.”
Mateta posted a message on his Instagram after the match to thank fans for their well wishes and to say that he was recovering.
“I’m doing well, I hope to be back very soon and stronger than ever,” the 27-year-old striker wrote. “Well done guys for the great job today. I love you, JP.”
Mateta has scored 15 goals in 33 appearances overall for Palace this season, including eight in his past eight Premier League appearances. Oliver Glasner’s side won the match 3-1 to progress through to the quarter-final stage of the competition.
How did the incident happen?
In the eighth minute of the match at Selhurst Park and with the game scoreless, Palace striker Mateta found himself through on Millwall’s goal after getting the better of opposition defender Jake Cooper.
Sensing the danger, Millwall goalkeeper Roberts rushed outside of his penalty area and leapt in the air to try and clear the bouncing ball, which was directly in front of Mateta’s head.
However, the follow through from the 30-year-old shot-stopper meant his left-foot connected with the side of Mateta’s face, leaving him with a head injury and requiring medical attention.
While Mateta was on the pitch receiving treatment, a section of Millwall supporters could be heard chanting “Let him die”. This unsavoury chant is not uncommon at football matches when an opposition player goes down injured, despite the potential severity of a head injury.
Might Millwall face punishment?
While those chants from Millwall fans are unlikely to breach any Football Association (FA) regulations, others chants directed towards Palace full-back Ben Chilwell potentially fall into that category. Chilwell, on loan at Palace from Chelsea, was subjected to the chant “Chelsea rent boy” from a section of Millwall fans. This is a homophobic slur aimed at Chelsea’s players and fans.
Why do opposition fans aim homophobic chants at Chelsea and what is being done to stop it?
The FA included the term on their list of punishable chants in January 2023 — one year on from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) confirming that it considered the term “rent boy” a homophobic slur. It means any football fan found to be chanting the term could see their club, and themselves, have disciplinary action taken against them.
What did the officials do?
Play was stopped for several minutes to allow the French striker to receive treatment on the pitch, while referee Oliver was referred to the pitchside monitor by VAR.
The fifth-round of the FA Cup was the first round of this season’s competition when VAR was used by officials, having not previously been available in previous rounds.
Roberts had initially not been shown a yellow card for the incident, with the on-field officials not recognising the severity of the challenge despite Oliver being in close proximity to the incident.
Roberts was subsequently shown a straight red card by Oliver, while Mateta was taken to hospital to assess his injury.
Eddie Nketiah, who later scored, replaced the injured Mateta for Palace while Millwall brought on substitute goalkeeper Lukas Jensen for attacking midfielder Luke Cundle.
What else was said?
Palace head coach Glasner confirmed Mateta was “conscious” in hospital after the match, but said the striker’s “ear looks terrible”.
“Just imagine if he hits the face straight with all this power it would have been the end of JP’s career,” Glasner said of the Roberts challenge. “I’m pretty sure he didn’t want to injure JP but I also think you have to decide when you make such an impact you just can’t do it in this way. The risk of a very serious injury is too high, it was the wrong decision.
“Maybe call it naive but I always believe in the good parts of everyone. I still believe he (Roberts) didn’t want to injure JP. I will always believe this. It was the wrong decision. I talk about it, I can judge because I had to end my career because of a head injury and even then I didn’t blame the other player — we crashed.
“I mention it quite often, health is the biggest value we all have. You have to decide so quickly. It should be somewhere here in the back of your mind, if it’s like this then… I don’t want to defend the keeper but it was out of the box so replicate it.”
Glasner added that the challenge “looks worse in slow motion”.
Millwall manager Alex Neil said he believes there was no “intent” from his goalkeeper to hurt Mateta.
“I think the ball went in behind, Liam Roberts has come out which he has done in many games he’s played,” Neil told BBC Sport. “He’s misjudged it and caught the lad. He has mistimed it, he got sent off which at that stage made the game doubly difficult for us.”
Neil added: “I don’t think it is meant. I don’t think there is any intent, why would there be intent? We don’t want the lad to be injured. We wish him well and hope he is back on the pitch soon. It was a mistiming, he was sent off, he is disappointed and will hope Mateta is fine, which we all do.”
Palace centre-back Marc Guehi, told BBC Sport of Mateta’s injury: “A little worrying actually. We wish him a speedy recovery and we know he’s in hospital at the moment, which is good. We hope he’s doing well and can rejoin the team as quick as possible.”
Nketiah, who replaced Mateta after the injury, said that while he was happy to play it was “not in the best circumstances” as he wished his team-mate a speedy recovery.
“I’m gutted for JP,” he told BBC Sport. “He’s a big character and I wish him a speedy recovery. This is unfortunately football sometimes.”
(Top image: Jacques Feeney/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)
