Podence appears to spit at Nottingham Forest player Johnson but escapes red card

The Portugal international looked straight at the Forest star before exhaling his cheeks and blowing, before Johnson reacted by grabbing his face and turning towards the referee.

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The incident was reviewed but referee David Coote was not told to go to the monitor and VAR ruled that there had been no infringement.

A flare-up between both sides in a spiky encounter at the City Ground occurred after a collision between Diego Costa and Cheikhou Kouyate with time running out.

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It saw both sets of players run in to push and shove each other around before Podence appeared to spit in the direction of Johnson's face.

Speaking on talkSPORT, Trevor Sinclair said: "It looked like that [he spat]. There was a little coming together between Diego Costa and Cheikhou Kouyate.

"Quite a few of the players came around and just on the angle of the camera, it looked like he puffed his cheeks and blew in the direction of Brennan Johnson.

"Johnson put his hand on his face as if to say, 'referee, what's going on?'

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"We can't see any fluid from Podence's mouth, we have to say. But it did look like a spitting action into Johnson's face, which is disgusting to see."

Speaking on BBC's Final Score, Leon Osman was adamant that Podence did spit and said: "All the motions were there.

"The puckering of lips and movement with the face by Daniel Podence, the reaction from Brennan Johnson, but he's obviously gotten away with it.

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"You hope it wasn't what it looked like, as that is one of the worst things you can do to a fellow professional on the football pitch."

Forest manager Steve Cooper was guarded when asked about the moment but did indicate that there could be retrospective action.

He said: "I'm not going to comment on it publicly. I'm sure there will be next steps."

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Podence spoke after the match, which ended 1-1 where he grabbed the equaliser, but did not talk about the incident, when he said: "Best league in the world. We have been doing great work.

"I'm very happy with that and a goal today. We had a difficult match in front of us and we got one point in the relegation fight.

"It was very frustrating because we had a lot of the ball but they had the best chances. I was looking at the time and we had a lot of time to win this game.

"I played against Forest last year in the cup and this year the matches have been brutal in terms of decisions, which are very complicated against us and make us feel frustrated.

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"Morgan has a bit of joy to provoke our fans. It's difficult to explain this rivalry."