Phil Hay has defended referee Chris Kavanagh for his performance at Elland Road on Sunday despite some controversial decisions.
Leeds United were certainly involved in some highly contentious decisions both on the pitch and back in the VAR booth with two penalties and a red card being awarded, however, only one spot kick ended up standing, although it did require a VAR check.
Something that Kavanagh didn’t miss though was an apparent push from Bamford which gave him enough space to fire home past Aaron Ramsdale and the referee did very quickly blow his whistle and penalise the Leeds striker.
Hay, however, believes it was indeed the correct call and on The Phil Hay Show, even praised Kavanagh for his Sunday performance.
(35:25) “If it was the other way around I don’t think anybody would be sitting saying yeah, that should have actually been allowed had that been on Robin Koch.
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“It was weak, but it was a nudge and it was definitely a deliberate nudge if you look at it, however much contact was actually in there that’s what he was trying to do. I actually thought Kavanagh had a pretty good day, all around.”
TIF Thoughts on Kavanagh’s performance…
It’s quite a bland and well-looked-at situation by Hay to praise Kavanagh, as it would’ve been a say to criticise him and thus appears the many Leeds fans who will have been listening to the podcast when in reality, he got most of the decision correct.
While he did miss a rather obvious handball by William Saliba, VAR cleared that up and Kavanagh ended up awarding a penalty, so he realised and rectified his own mistake to benefit Jesse Marsch’s side.