The People's Forum: And that’s the problem, for me

The referee didn’t give it, presumably because he wasn’t sure. He speaks to the assistant linesman, who says it’s a pen, and it’s given. VAR then have a look, and the burden is being a clear and obvious error to overturn the refs onfield decision.

But this situation wasn’t the linesman saying “don’t worry I had a great view and it’s a nailed on pen”, it was “I had a better view than you and I think it’s a pen, and good job we have VAR to double check anyway”.

It’s possible that VAR wouldn’t have give it, but they went along with the linesman (not referee) who, incidentally, didn’t see the ball go out of play when we should have had a corner.

If we’re going to put less emphasis on VAR and trust on field officials more, then they need to err on the side of caution!

I think we were hard done by because the referee ended up giving a penalty for something he didn’t form an opinion on.

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…as far as I can tell, the ref did not immediately point to the spot, and only did so upon some communication with the VAR. Did I see that correctly?

Then, there was another pause while VAR checked.

After that, it was confirmed without ref being asked to give final approval on the screen.

I thought the way it usually worked was that the ref makes a decision (in this case it would presumably be not to give the pen as he didn’t point to the spot right away), then VAR would tell him he might’ve messed up big time, he’d then be invited to the screen to either confirm or overturn his original (non) decision.

But perhaps the process has also changed this season, or maybe (and I’ve not watched it again because I can’t be arsed) I have misread what happened last night.

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No one knows - really - what’s a penalty or not any more?
The more they leave it open to interpretation the more chaos it will cause.
How many people got the screenshot of Kavanagh NOT awarding us a penalty vs Man City last night where the arm was outstretched & it wasn’t given????

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They talk about “he leaned in”…of course he did, you are allowed to try to block any ball. His arm couldn’t be much closer to the ball. In my opinion it was great defending and a great block.
Cheats!