Immediately following a shocking challenge from Millwall custodian Liam Roberts, Jean-Philippe Mateta was taken to the hospital in an ambulance.
During the fifth-round match of the FA Cup, the striker for Crystal Palace was struck on the head by Roberts, who displayed a moment of insanity before the match.
At the same time that Mateta was rushing onto a through ball, Roberts moved his foot outside of his box in order to clear the ball.
A red card was eventually shown to the custodian after the referee, Michael Oliver, reviewed the incident at the pitchside video assistant referee monitor. The custodian had collided with the striker’s head from a high speed.
Nine medical personnel arrived at the scene to provide treatment to Mateta, who had been lying on the ground for a period of eight minutes.
Following this, the Frenchman was placed on a stretcher while receiving oxygen, and he was immediately transported to the hospital from a pitchside ambulance.
As the Eagles were leading by a score of 2-1 at the halftime break, chairman Steve Parish conducted an unusual interview in which he provided an update on Mateta and expressed his ire at Roberts’ invitation.
Parish was quoted as saying to the BBC, “He is currently being treated at the hospital for a head injury and a severe gash behind his ear.” Our best wishes are with you.
It’s true that football is a sport that evokes a lot of feelings, but we need to talk about the difficulty of the situation. Never in all the years that I’ve been a football fan have I witnessed a challenge quite like this one.
I was curious about the age of the keeper, and I found out that he is thirty years old.
To put it another way, I believe that young man needs to take a good, hard look at himself. He is putting the safety of another professional in jeopardy by posing such a challenge.
Due to the fact that we are concerned about JP and the fact that it is a terrible, terrible challenge, it is very difficult for me to talk about the rest of the game.
Reacting on commentary, ex-Chelsea defender Scott Minto was left appalled by the goalkeeper’s challenge.
“That is reckless,” the co-commentator for talkSPORT said. “There is no chest or shoulder involved at all. Having followed through, he has successfully caught him on his head.
“You are taking on a very risky challenge. It is perilous, it is irresponsible, and it is a severe offence. Put your head on straight.
He continued by saying, “It’s a terrible tackle.” If he claimed that there was no malicious intent, I might believe him. Nevertheless, it is irrelevant.
It is a terrible thing that he has caught him in that manner. It will be in Mateta’s best interest to rise above that.
This season, Mateta has been a superstar for Oliver Glasner’s team, scoring 12 goals in 27 Premier League matches. He has participated in all of those matches.
There is not a single player in the top flight who has scored more goals than the 27-year-old in 2025, who has scored eight goals since the beginning of the year.
There is only one player in the Premier League who has contributed to more goals than Mateta over the course of the past year, and that is Erling Haaland, a striker for Manchester City.
Tony Cascarino, a former striker for the Republic of Ireland, predicted that Mateta would make a significant transfer this summer while he was analysing the striker on the talkSPORT Weekend Breakfast show.
Cascarino stated, “Place is going to have a difficult time finding a way to keep hold of him.” The reason for this is that when we look at strikers, we sometimes ask ourselves, “Does he meet the requirements for a particular club?”
“Well, I’ll tell you what, there will be a lot of clubs that are looking at him,” the speaker said.
I went to see him perform at Le Havre when he was there. When I was a very young player, I watched him play. After that, he chose to travel to Germany, specifically to Mainz and other places. And then he made his way to England, which was the place where he initially had a lot of difficulty. But he has developed into a much more well-rounded player.
