February 13 – If Arsenal fail to land the Premier League title, they may well look back on Saturday and Sunday’s pivotal VAR decision as one of the reasons.
Manager Mikel Arteta was left fuming after a Brentford equaliser was allowed to stand, a ruling that has led to further heated debate about VAR’s inconsistency as well as an apology from the body responsible.
English referees chief Howard Webb contacted Arsenal and Brighton – who also suffered VAR injustice – to admit there had been “significant errors” in their respective matches on Saturday that were both down to “human error”.
Ivan Toney’s equaliser for Brentford meant Arsenal dropped two points in the title race but replays showed it should have been ruled out for offside in the build-up, leading Arteta to accuse officials of “changing the rules”.
Across London, Brighton saw their quest for European football suffer a blow in a 1-1 draw with Crystal Palace that saw Pervis Estupinan’s goal wrongly chalked off for offside.
It was one of the worst single days for VAR in the English top flight and Webb, chief of referees’ body PGMOL and a former World Cup referee, has unusually called a meeting of all Premier League officials to discuss the mistakes and make sure they don’t re-occur.
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