Chelsea’s Marcos Alonso has been charged with violent conduct by the Football Association.
The left wing-back appeared to stand on the back of Southampton striker Shane Long’s leg during their Premier League game on Saturday, but the incident went unpunished by referee Mike Dean.
However, the FA has since reviewed footage and now sanctioned the Spaniard, who has until 6pm on Wednesday to respond.
Alonso is facing a three-match ban if he accepts the charge which would rule him out of Sunday’s FA Cup semi-final with the Saints and Premier League games with Burnley on Thursday and Swansea a week on Saturday.
The incident happened in the first half of Chelsea’s clash at St Mary’s when they were trailing, but Dean did not even book Alonso and Antonio Conte’s men went on to win 3-2.
An FA statement read: “Chelsea’s Marcos Alonso has been charged with violent conduct following an incident with Southampton’s Shane Long.
“It happened in the 43rd minute of Saturday’s game [14/04/18] and was not seen by the match officials but caught on video.
“He has until 6pm on Wednesday [18/04/18] to respond to the charge.
“Off the ball incidents which are not seen at the time are referred by The FA to a panel of three former elite match officials.
“Each panel member will review the video footage independently of one another to determine whether they consider it a sending-off offence.
“For retrospective action to be taken, and an FA charge to follow, the decision of the panel must be unanimous.”
Southampton boss Mark Hughes was disapproving of the tackle at the time.
He said: “It was a poor challenge, it should have been a red card in my view.
“The disappointment was the officials didn’t see it, they were all within a 10 to 15 metre radius. One of them should have seen it.
“It was a poor tackle, and one that could have been more severe for Shane.”
