LONDON — The extremes of imported artistry and homegrown belligerence that make English Premier League soccer a compelling spectacle were on full view this weekend.
The darkness came first, when a referee overlooked a horrendous foul by a Burnley player but showed the red card to a Chelsea player who reacted by pushing the perpetrator to the ground Saturday.
The violator got off scot-free. The retaliator got a red card. And Chelsea’s manager, already heavily fined this season for claiming there is a refereeing bias against his team, made his point by saying nothing more than asking viewers to look at the replay.
That video would show a lunge by Burnley’s Ashley Barnes that was so late and so high above the ball that it might easily have broken the outstretched lower leg of Chelsea’s Nemanja Matic.
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To that end, City paid 25 million pounds, about $38 million, during the January transfer window to get the Bony, a striker, from Swansea. Dzeko, who said Saturday on television that he thinks David Silva is the best player in the Premier League, was asked whether he felt Bony was a rival for his place in the lineup.
“We are all players for the team,” Dzeko calmly replied. “He’s very welcome.” Chelsea, he concluded, is the competition, not anyone within.
A version of this article appears in print on February 23, 2015, in The International New York Times. Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe
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