Tottenham eased into the quarter-finals of the FA Cup on Wednesday night, winning 6-1 in their fifth round replay against League One side Rochdale at Wembley.
Despite the result, the main talking point was the use of VAR in a first half that finished 1-1.
Heung-Min Son and Stephen Humphreys exchanged goals, but it was a number of controversial decisions that dominated the conversation after 45 minutes.
Perhaps the most contentious of those calls was the referee’s decision to rule out an early Erik Lamela strike – Fernando Llorente was adjudged to have fouled a Rochdale defender just before Lamela slotted home.
Replays seemed to show Llorente and the defender were both guilty of shirt pulling, but the decision went against Spurs.
Did the referee get it right? Watch it happen below and decide for yourself.
no, I think the ref got it wrong, both players had hold of each others shirt, so how can he penalise only one of them. and if they are going to clamp down on shirt pulling, we will be having 4 or 5 penalties every game, especially on free kicks and corners, that unfortunately would see games running into at least 15/20mins added time at the end of each half, the game would be ruined!!
And what about the tackle on Moura which didn’t get a penalty?
to be honest first time ever i didnt want to strangle a ref, i blame the faceless arsenal fan on the var
It was awful reffing. VAR is supposed to be used only when a clear and obvious mistake has occurred. Not when refs are pressured into it by the defending team. There were two penalty shouts for Spurs, one of which was ruled out by VAR a good 90 seconds after the incident. The other wasn’t referred to VAR at all. And how the ref and his assistant needed 2-3 minutes deliberation over the penalty they did give is astonishing. The ref also used VAR in ruling out Sons penalty and giving a free kick. He was a weak official who needed the reassurance of having a 5th official on video to make key decisions for him.
The reaction of the defenders shows what a bad decision this is. Not one Rochdale player appeals for any foul, because there was none. It was just a case of two players battling for the ball and the stronger one came out with it. He gets penalised because he came out with the ball!!
[…] Erik Lamela had an early goal ruled out after Fernando Llorente was adjudged to have fouled a Rochdale defender in the build-up – replays showed there wasn’t much in it. […]
VAR should have a limit, 2 per game. The manager will need to decide on when to use it. Also the analysis should be much quicker, each one taking 2-3 minutes is ridiculous.
[…] easy to forget an actual game of football happened on Wednesday night amid all of the VAR controversy at […]