Arsenal has just gotten a major win after seeing off Leicester City with a 3-1 win over the Foxes.
It was a game that the Gunners needed to win to get their European hopes back on track and they did just that.
They didn’t have the best of starts and fell behind their host in the early minutes of the match.
However, they responded well and got a goal back through David Luiz, just before halftime.
Their equaliser might have come earlier when the referee initially awarded them a penalty for a foul on Nicolas Pepe by Wilfred Ndidi.
Paul Tierney was confident that it was a penalty, but VAR reviewed and overturned it, awarding a free-kick to the Gunners instead.
Ian Wright said at half time that he never thought it was a penalty in the first place and was surprised by how long it took to review the incident before VAR made the free-kick call even though there was no contact.
Speaking on Premier League Productions as quoted by All Nigerian Soccer Wright said: “I thought that was a good decision but for them to take as long as they did I just couldn’t see how they come up with that as a foul because I didn’t see it as a foul.
“I didn’t see the contact, I still can’t see there’s clear and obvious contact.”
Clearly a foul first just outside the box and why it took so long to confirm when we could see it after one replay is beyond me.
VAR got it right but the time taken was ridiculous.
100% a foul, but I’m not convinced it wasn’t a penalty.
There were 2 potential fouls on Pepe there: Ndidi (outside of the box), and Tielemans (inside the box…technically right on the edge, but that’s inside the box by the rules). I’m fairly confident that Paul Tierney awarded the penalty for the Tielemans foul, and based on the shitty camera angle they kept showing in the broadcast, there was zero evidence of a “clear and obvious error”. I’m not sure there was contact by Tielemans, but I’m also not sure there wasn’t. And without clear evidence in either direction, the ruling on the field stands.
But that’s the problem with these cheating refs – they pick and choose which rules they’re going to apply, and when. This situation is EXACTLY the same as the over-turned penalty against Saka in the Leeds game. In that instance, it was definitely a penalty. Even if the argument is that it was a soft penalty (it wasn’t), VAR isn’t allowed to overturn those. The criteria to overturn an on-field ruling is a “clear and obvious error”. The VAR official isn’t allowed to make judgement calls (except that the constantly do, and always rule against Arsenal…bc they’re a bunch of cheats).
Also, why was Tierney called over to the monitor for the handball penalty? That was a clear penalty. There was no judgement to be made. This was a clear and obvious error, so the VAR official should simply say “Paul, that’s a penalty for a handball in the box.” Want to know why he instead called Paul over? Because the VAR official couldn’t find a way to not award the penalty, so he deferred it to Tierney in the hopes that he could find a reason not to.
They’re a bunch of blatant cheats. If there’s a ruling that should go in Arsenal’s favor, they pour over the details for 5 minutes looking for an excuse not to give it. But if there’s the slightest bit of evidence to rule against Arsenal, the decision is made in a nanosecond! Remember how long they spent trying to prove Ozil was offside in that goal last year where he was well onside?
Not a foul, a slight touch is not a foul.
Ruining the game of football if that is a foul!
How is it we could all see the first foul outside the box with one or two views yet the VAR ref takes twenty views to come up with the same decision? It’s not cheating, it’s incompetence.
Politics always play out whenever Arsenal has a decision in our favor. Y didn’t VAR zoom the contact 4 clarity sake ? That was another penalty denied again. The view would have been broader if the decision was against Arsenal, I can bet on that.
The many posts above questioning why VAR takes so long, perfectly make my point that the whole concept of VAR is a calamitous farce and should never have been brought in. The huge damage it is doing to our sport and the all important enjoyment, is something sadly, that so many cannot see. I see it TOTALLY CLEARLY.
BIN IT TODAY would be my choice!