Newcastle United may feel incredibly hard done by on Sunday afternoon having not been awarded a penalty in the first half of this weekend’s game.
Eddie Howe’s men fought for a valuable – and perhaps unexpected – point on Tyneside against the Premier League champions, which sees them sit in sixth spot in the table.
Having cruised to a 3-1 lead in the second half, an inspired comeback from Manchester City saw the Toon share the points, but they may have been left feeling aggrieved by a particular incident.
And that was the coming-together between Fabian Schar and John Stones inside the City box, which saw the Englishman clatter into the Toon defender when going up for a header.
BBC’s Match of the Day 2 highlighted the incident that Jarred Gillett had deemed not a penalty and was not followed up on by VAR despite Stones failing to win the header and taking Schar out in the process.
TIF Thoughts on the image…
We are absolutely amazed that this was not given as a penalty. It was a shaky afternoon for the Australian referee who was sent to the pitchside monitor to rescind his straight red card shown to Kieran Trippier.
Should this have been a penalty?
Yes
No
However, we think this is a bit of a howler. Had this coming-together occurred outside of the box, we do not think the referee would have thought twice about blowing his whistle.
Yet this was not the case. Stones rises for the ball and makes absolutely no contact with Miguel Almiron’s cross, which not only leaves Schar unable to jump to win the ball himself, but also with the City defender colliding with his upper body.
Jordan Cronin also thought that John Stones got away with one, with his careless tackle.