Former Premier League referee Dermot Gallagher has said that he doesn’t think that Jack Grealish dived in the controversial incident at the end of the game against Crystal Palace on Saturday.
Palace won the game 1-0 but Villa thought they’d equalised in the 96th minute when Grealish offloaded the ball to Henri Lansbury, who thumped the ball home.
Grealish was nudged by Wilfried Zaha and upended by Gary Cahill, but referee Kevin Friend had already blown the whistle and booked Grealish for simulation.
Talking on Ref Watch (Sky Sports, Monday, 11.30am), Gallagher wouldn’t go as far as to criticise Friend and added that you couldn’t blame VAR for what happened.
“If the whistle hadn’t have gone, which it did, so that’s the end of the play… But if it hadn’t VAR would have checked if the goal was legal. The referee might well have said ‘I feel there’s been a simulation, so I’m going to give that’. They could have checked if it was a penalty but they can’t check for simulation.”
Asked if Grealish had dived, Gallagher said, “The ref thought so… But as the ref made the decision when he hit the ground that’s the only phase you can look at. It’s the referee’s choice. He made that choice. The referee was of the mindset that he went over too easily. At that point, the game is terminated so what follows is completely immaterial.”
Pundit Sue Smith was more equivocal, saying, “It was definitely not a dive, he did get contact and he was looking to play the ball. I think it’s a poor decision from the referee.”
Pressed again if it was simulation from Grealish, Gallagher said, “I thought not. The referee thinks it is.”
TiF Verdict
This explanation from Gallagher shows that the integration of VAR is not as clearcut as some fans would think. VAR can’t check for simulation but it can check if a penalty should be awarded or not.
That means that a decision about simulation has to be made by the referee and – rightly or wrongly – Kevin Friend made that call in the dying seconds of the game against Palace.
It really does appear that he got it wrong, though. There were multiple contacts on Grealish, who managed to offload the ball anyway, and the Villa player didn’t appeal for a penalty and actually sprung to his feet straight away after hitting the ground.
Add that together and it looks an incredibly harsh decision on Dean Smith’s side who must have felt they were worth at least a point from the game.
However, over the course of 90 minutes, Palace were well on top and perhaps deserved the three points on the balance of play.
The attack momentum graph from SofaScore shows the home side’s dominance (in green), and they enjoyed the most possession and had 22 shots and five on target, compared to ten and two from Villa.
