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Premier League referees’ chief Howard Webb insisted that Michael Oliver didn’t make a mistake in not awarding a 98th-minute penalty to Liverpool in their draw against Manchester City earlier this month.
The game was poised at 1-1 when Liverpool won a late corner, from which City’s Jérémy Doku caught Alexis Mac Alister in the chest when playing a bouncing ball inside the area and no penalty was given.
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Webb, speaking on the regular VAR show which broadcasts the audio between the officials, said that whatever the on-field decision was should have stood, and that the VAR, Stuart Attwell, was correct not to view it as a clear and obvious error.
“If the referee gives it on the field, it would have been a check complete by the VAR and equally, having not given it, it’s also check complete,” Webb said. “You hear Michael Oliver say the balls in between two players going together. The ball is too low to head. Doku, lifts his foot to play the ball, and he does make contact on the ball.
“And yes, we know there’s some contact on Mac Allister as well, Mac Allister comes into him, Mac Allister is not really playing the ball either. So, I understand why it’s split opinion.
“I think it would have been checked complete either way, not wanting to to re-referee the gaming situations that are not really clear which is what we think the VAR is is for in this situation. The VAR stays out of it. I think that is what we would we would expect.” Webb added: “You want to to know with clarity, with certainty that you’re making the right decision. You know, you don’t always have sufficient information in the moment to make that decision.
“Clearly, Michael [Oliver] didn’t have it in this situation. And then the VAR looks at it and doesn’t see a clear and obvious situation. You see something that’s pretty subjective and therefore stays out of it, and the feedback we’ve had from people within the game is that this is a pretty subjective situation, it’s split opinion.
“So on that basis, the VAR, you know, working to that high threshold kind of followed the kind of the right course in not getting involved.”
Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp said after the game that his side had been denied a clear penalty and questioned what Attwell had “for lunch.”
“Why would the guy in the VAR room think that’s not clear and obvious?” Klopp said. “What did he have for lunch? It was 100 percent a penalty. They [officials] will find an explanation. It was 100 percent foul in all areas of the pitch and probably a yellow card.”
The Premier League’s Independent Key Match Incidents Panel has also ruled that the decision was correct. The panel’s findings, seen by ESPN, said on a split 3-2 vote that “a genuine attempt to play the ball with both players coming into contact with each other as a result. Doku is just about entitled to challenge for the ball and, despite making contact with Mac Allister’s chest, he makes contact with the ball.”
The panel also voted 4-1 that there should have been no VAR intervention. The panel has five members, made up of three former players and/or coaches, plus one representative each from the Premier League and PGMOL.
It was set up at the start of last season to give an independent assessment of decision-making rather than relying on the views of PGMOL or the clubs themselves. The judgement is intended to provide an arm’s-length assessment of all major match incidents.
Also in this week’s judgements, the panel unanimously voted that referee Rob Jones should shown Arsenal‘s Kai Havertz a second yellow card for simulation in their 2-1 home win over Brentford, an on-field decision which VAR is not able to change.
And Nottingham Forest had yet another refereeing error go against them as the panel voted 5-0 that Brighton & Hove Albion‘s Jakob Moder should have been dismissed for a challenge on Neco Williams. The challange was said to be “dangerous and out of control with a high degree of intensity and force driven by the speed of the challenge.”
Both referee Michael Salisbury and VAR Craig Pawson failed to identify the red-card offence in a game Forest lost 1-0. It was the third time in five Premier League fixtures that Forest have had a VAR error going against then, after they should have been awarded penalties against both Newcastle United (lost 3-2) and West Ham United (won 2-0).
Only Liverpool have suffered as many VAR errors as the four suffered by Forest.
Moder’s red card is the seventh missed by the VAR team this season, making up a third of the 21 mistakes logged by the panel.