Ex-Spurs star Jermaine Jenas has slammed the officiating referee for a Jan Vertonghen red card vs Borussia Dortmund. Jermaine Jenas slammed referee Gianluca Rocchi for sending Jan Vertonghen off right at the death during Tottenham Hotspur’s 3-1 win against Borussia Dortmund.

The former Spurs midfielder watched on as his former side got their Champions League campaign off to the perfect start courtesy of goals from Son Heung-Min and Harry Kane, with Andriy Yarmolenko scoring for the Bundesliga side. While it was a good result for the Premier League outfit, there were some contentious decisions.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang saw a perfectly fine goal ruled out for offside, before Vertonghen saw red after receiving a second yellow card for catching Mario Gotze with his arm. And Jenas fumed at the referee for a poor decision. ‘No it’s not [a red card]. Not at any stage is Jan swinging his arm to elbow Mario Gotze,’ he told BT Sport after the match. ‘The referee is very quick in his decision thinking “it was obviously malicious; it was obviously dangerous”, which is why he’s done that.

He continued to stress the point that it was a poor decision from the referee, saying he is still struggling to understand what the ref meant by the red card. Kane added in his post-match interview that did not see the challenge, saying that it looked like they just bumped together and he went down.

Jermaine Jenas is a retired English professional footballer and current BT Sport pundit, who played as a central midfielder for English club sides Nottingham Forest, Newcastle United, Tottenham Hotspur, Aston Villa and Queens Park Rangers during an illustrious career, all for whom he scored a career total of 39 goals from 341 league appearances. He also appeared 21 times for the senior England national football team, scoring one goal.