'Hunt could have avoided Cech collision' says Cudicini

The Petr Cech affair showed no sign of cooling yesterday when Chelsea's second stricken goalkeeper Carlo Cudicini led the attack on the Reading striker Stephen Hunt, whom he described as a liar for claiming he could not have avoided the collision on Saturday. The Italian also described the decision-making of referee Mike Riley as "absurd" after the challenge that left him unconscious on the pitch.

Last night, Cudicini, 33, could have been lining up against Barcelona as Cech's replacement while Chelsea's first-choice goalkeeper begins the long road to recovery from the fractured skull he suffered at the Madejski stadium. However, after being knocked out in the final moment of the Premiership match against Reading, the Italian is also unsure when he will be playing again.

Mourinho's criticism of the time it took the South Central ambulance service NHS Trust to take Cech to hospital - and the service's subsequent denials - dominated the build-up to last night's match. Cudicini said yesterday that his and Cech's injuries were symptomatic of a failure by English referees to protect grounded goalkeepers from late, cynical, studs-up fouls by strikers.

Cudicini said that Hunt, whose knee injured Cech, may not have intended to hurt the player so seriously but had meant to make contact. "Petr had already got hold of the ball," Cudicini told the Italian newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport. "It is obvious that Hunt did not intend to harm him, otherwise he should be labelled an assassin. But he is Pinocchio [liar] when he says he could not avoid him. He went on with a firm leg to get the collision, the fall and a possible penalty. To me it's absolutely clear-cut."

On the recent spate of injuries to goalkeepers, such as Middlesbrough's Mark Schwarzer and Shay Given of Newcastle, Cudicini was emphatic that there is a serious problem in the Premiership, with attacking players neglecting to jump out of goalkeepers' way.

"In continental Europe the goalkeepers are always protected; in England the contrary happens," Cudicini said. "On the high balls we often have to punch away to avoid the charge which would not be sanctioned. I'm OK with the 50-50 challenges, when you can get an elbow, but when you are on the ground, having got hold of the ball, here you still get a knee in the face, or studs on your head.

"Here they do not pull out, it is not customary to try to jump over the keeper. Had the referee sent off Hunt after his knee hit Cech, you can rest assured that Hunt would not try it again the following match."

Cudicini was caught by the full force of Ibrahima Sonko's challenge in the latter stages of the match as he came out to claim the ball in the area. While Mourinho has dismissed the clash as an accident, his goalkeeper took a very different view and said the defender should have been sent off. "I've seen the incidents on video. I am sure that if a collision like Sonko's with me had happened between two players in the middle of the pitch he would have got a red card," Cudicini said.

"But the referee, Riley, did not even blow for a foul. Had Didier Drogba not intercepted the ball on the line, with myself out cold in front of goal, we would have had the added irony of a Reading equaliser. Sonko's challenge was extremely late, I had long since pushed the ball away. But I have no qualms with Sonko. I am angry with the ref. What an absurdity not to sanction such a foul."

On Tuesday, Mourinho made allegations about the treatment afforded to Cech, claiming that 30 minutes had elapsed between his staff calling an ambulance and the goalkeeper leaving the ground. The ambulance service and Reading have made strong denials and Chelsea will now place the matter in the hands of the Football Association.

Cudicini said he had been "lucky" to escape without serious damage after only coming round when he was in the ambulance. But he was scathing about the suggestion from, among others, the Professional Footballers' Association chief executive, Gordon Taylor, that goalkeepers should wear protective headgear.

"How absurd," he said. "Instead of demanding action against those who so violently challenge the keepers, they want to dress us up like ice hockey keepers."

The South Central Ambulance Service NHS Trust further defended itself yesterday. Mark Ainsworth, the trust's operations manager on duty at the match, tackled Mourinho's allegations that it had taken30 minutes to get Cech into the ambulance.Ainsworth said: "We didn't take half an hour. It wasn't our delay. We are disappointed to have been dragged into it. It has tarnished our name."

Chelsea's own medical facilities came in for criticism when Charlton said they had been unhappy with the care they received when Djimi Traoré was injured last month. Traoré, on loan from Liverpool, broke a bone in his leg, and the Charlton physio Wayne Diesel said there had been problems getting him to hospital.

"I asked the Chelsea medical staff if we could arrange an X-ray," Diesel said. "They use a local hospital but when we enquired about taking him there straight away there was a problem because the police would not let the ambulance leave the ground.

"In addition, when we contacted the hospital we were told it would take several hours because they were busy. That is not the way we do things."