Sports journalist Conor Humm has pointed out what appears to be a rather bad error made in the lead up to Leeds United’s penalty against Arsenal, which ended up being missed.
Indeed, there seemed to be an offside in the build-up to the penalty being awarded, with the Gunners winning the game 1-0 with just over 25 minutes of normal time remaining.
With the game on a knife edge after Bukayo Saka had put the Gunners a goal ahead in the first-half, William Saliba was penalised for handling the ball in the penalty box, with VAR being needed for the award of the decision after on-pitch referee Chris Kavanagh failed to award the decision straight away.
However, it seems that VAR failed to spot Leeds right-back Rasmus Kristensen who, on first-viewing, looks to be ahead of Arsenal’s line of defence.
And, Conor Humm was humoured by the fact that the both sides had to face an almost 40 minute delay in the first-half due to a power cut, only for VAR to seemingly be proven irrelevant in the making of the penalty decision.
TIF Thoughts on the decision…
We find it particularly strange that the decision to award Leeds a penalty was not overturned, especially after VAR had the opportunity to check the decision, as we feel that Kristensen was clearly offside in the build-up to the award of the penalty. Regardless of how long it was before the penalty decision, the likelihood is it wouldn’t have ben awarded had they blown up for the offside.
However, Arteta will not be too concerned after Bamford missed the resulting penalty, and VAR later overturned an initial penalty award to the hosts, with the Gunners securing all three points following a 1-0 victory.
But we do feel that maybe this decision should be scrutinised, and a clear explanation should be given as to why this penalty wasn’t overturned in the first place, as from our point of view, we think that this should have been blown for offside.