Manchester United fans will be fuming as Richard Keys highlights major incident that went unnoticed by VAR, which was live on BT Sport.
The Red Devils fell to a second defeat this week when they were put to the sword by Arsenal, which was a damaging blow to their hopes of finishing in the top four this season, although they only have themselves to blame after squandering a great chance from the spot to level things up in the second half.
While Man United were handed one penalty, which was missed by Bruno Fernandes, they may feel extremely hard done by to have not been awarded one earlier in the match, but across the balance of play, the Red Devils didn’t deserve the three points managing just five shots on target and needed David de Gea to pull off six impressive saves.
No matter how poorly they played, Richard Keys has pointed out that Cedric clearly handled the ball and scooped it away from the feet of Jadon Sancho who was breaking into the box, with neither Craig Pawson nor the VAR team feeling it deserved a spot-kick.
TIF Thoughts on the missed incident…
Of course, this is merely just one incident in the game as Bruno Fernandes could have easily seen red.
While a lot of handballs can be up for debate and subject to opinion based on where the arm is and if it’s outstretched and away from the body, however, this one appeared to be clear cut and a nailed-on penalty as Cedric literally just scooped the ball away from Sancho, who would have had a clear run into the box.
However, what makes it difficult is there is a rule which states that a penalty cannot be given if the ball is trapped between your body and arm, which complicates things.
The incident occurred with the score at 2-0, so it didn’t have too much of an effect on proceedings and Bruno Fernandes ended up missing a penalty later on, but it certainly looks a strange one.
As the Referee on BT pointed out the laws state that it was not deemed a hand ball and thus not a penalty. But what does a referee know compared to Richard Keys?