Former Premier League referee Mark Halsey has been sharing his thoughts on the incident between Newcastle United striker Callum Wilson and Leeds United defender Liam Cooper during the Toon’s 5-2 defeat to the Yorkshire club last week.
During the match at Elland Road, Cooper brought down Wilson in the Leeds box but a penalty was not awarded to the Tyneside club, who then went on to lose the match.
Speaking exclusively to This Is Futbol, Halsey was asked what his thoughts were on this incident and whether or not Newcastle should have been awarded a penalty in the game.
He said: “I’ve received a lot of criticism from some of the Toon fans saying ‘well you didn’t report on the penalty that we should have had against Leeds in midweek.’
“For me, yes it was a clear penalty. It should have been a penalty against Leeds for Newcastle – a clear error by the match referee and I don’t know why VAR didn’t get involved.”
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Despite Jeff Hendrick opening the scoring at Elland Road and a goal in the second half from Ciaran Clark, Steve Bruce’s side were overrun after goals from Rodrigo, Patrick Bamford, Stuart Dallas, Ezgjan Alioski and Jack Harrison secured the three points for Leeds.
After the match, Bruce commented on the incident between Cooper and Wilson and said that “if anybody looks at the challenge you understand that it’s a clear penalty.”
Despite Halsey making the huge claim that the referee and VAR both were incorrect in not giving Newcastle penalty against Leeds, a lot of Toon fans will no doubt still be disappointed at the decision in midweek which could well have changed the outcome of the game if they had scored the penalty if it was given.