Leeds United players and fans may feel hard done by a penalty claim that went unnoticed by Mike Dean and the VAR team at the weekend.
For large parts of Sunday afternoon, the Whites were left thinking about what life could be like in the Championship and how stressful it might be on the final day of the season. While the latter is still likely to be the case, a late Pascal Struijk equaliser provided some much-needed hope and life.
Should this have been a penalty?
Yes!
No!
It was only through some brilliant footwork via Joe Gelhardt that teed up the unlikely goalscorer to head home his first of the season and move them out of the bottom three by one point, but it could have been all three had this decision gone in their favour late on.
Gelhardt was involved once again as he looked to cross into the middle only for Brighton’s Joel Veltman to block the ball using his arm, and neither Dean nor the VAR team gave it much thought as play continued despite the ball going out of play straight after the incident.
TIF Thoughts on this penalty shout…
While Veltman does move his arm back to his side and look to get it out of the way of Gelhardt’s cross, the fact it still hits his arm and stops it from potentially landing at the feet of a Leeds teammate should have seen VAR at least take some time looking at it.
This is one of those that probably wouldn’t have been overturned had it been given, with the ball clearly striking the arm of the defender. However, due to the fact that the referee didn’t give it initially, it makes it hard for VAR to overturn it as his arms appear to be pretty close to his body.
However, when compared to the decision that went against Burnley in Sunday’s lunchtime kick-off, some Leeds fans may think this one had more of a definitive contact compared to Ashley Barnes’, but Brighton would have likely felt hard done considering how close Veltman’s arm was to his side and how fast the ball travelled.
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