Referee Howard Webb admitted his error during Arsenal and Spurs game. He believes he should have prevented the penalty call to go upstairs to the VAR. Tottenham faced Arsenal in a tense battle. Spurs were trailing when they received a potential penalty chance. Referee Howard Webb said the VAR room would be disappointed at him. He failed to recognize a clear penalty. However, the VAR room immediately fixed the error. Spurs received the penalty, which Son converted with ease.
In the latter stages of the match, Spurs were trying to reduce Arsenal’s lead with a goal. Ben Davies was the first defender to reach the ball, but Declan Rice took him out with an attempted clearance.
Oliver was sent to the screen by VAR officials in a short amount of time. On the most recent episode of Match Officials Mic’d Up, chief referee Webb delivered his assessment of the incident.
What the Referee had to say about it
“I know Michael [Oliver] will be really disappointed,” Webb explained.
“He had a really good game. He’s one of our top referees; he’s one of the top referees in the world. He’s been selected for the Euros in Germany this summer, together with seven other English officials, and he had a really, really good game in the way he managed it.
“But I know you’ll be disappointed if he misread that in the moment, and we all can misread things in the moment. I did that many times myself. But thankfully, we’ve got VAR that can look at these situations very quickly. You’ll hear Jarred Gillett at the VAR. Check it out and stop the game in a neutral zone so nothing else can happen.
“For example, we don’t want a goal scored at the other end and then having to take that away as well. Stop the game as soon as possible. Michael went to the screen, looked at it, quickly saw the error, and gave a penalty. And as you say, without VAR, this would have stayed as a non-awarded penalty. It would have been hugely controversial. So, a really good use of the VAR facility here.”
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