Former Premier League referee Mark Clatternburg believes that Willy Boly was lucky to see his goal stand after the Wolves defender used his arm to score in the 1-1 draw with Manchester City on Saturday.
Boly put the West Midlands club ahead in the 57th minute, only for Aymeric Laporte to rescue a point for the reigning Premier League champions 12 minutes later.
And Clattenburg believes that Boly’s goal is a good example of why VAR should be introduced to England’s top-flight as Martin Atkinson’s view of the controversial moment was obscured and it was not obvious it was handball in real-time.
“You can argue Willy Boly’s handball is not deliberate, but it never feels right that a player can use his arm or hand to score a goal, especially as he changed the direction of the ball and gained an advantage by doing so,” said Clattenburg on the Daily Mail website.
“It should have been a free-kick to Manchester City. It is difficult, however, to attach blame to referee Martin Atkinson. For starters, it looked like a perfectly good goal on first viewing. He also has several players blocking his view and must rely on his assistant to make the call.
“The assistant, in his defence, is also checking for offside and it looks like Matt Doherty does make slight contact with the ball. It is a tight decision as Benjamin Mendy’s foot could still be playing Boly onside, so the benefit must go to the attacking team.
“But the key here is that a handball goal was missed and it is yet another example of the need for technology to assist the officiating team, because I think it was near enough impossible for them to see this in real time.”
OPINION
VAR is going to be a hotly-debated subject for the forseeable future, whether the Premier League decides to introduce it or not. At the World Cup, VAR was more hit than miss, as referees and their subjective decisions threw up more issues that the actual technology itself. Before the summer, most English football fans were dead against the new technology. It played havoc in West Brom’s FA Cup win against Liverpool last season with it holding up the game too long and leaving fans who attended games in the dark about what was happening. At the World Cup, it was much better and added a lot of entertainment to games. For incidents like this, Boly’s goal should have been chalked off and VAR would (probably) have seen that happen. Two points dropped for Man City due to this goal could have a major impact come the end of the season, while the one point gained for Wolves could be pivotal in their potential fight to stay up.