Howard Webb was wheeled out on Tuesday night to give his two cents (i.e. try to cover for his referees’ failings) over a contentious decision in Liverpool’s 1-1 draw against Arsenal last month.
During the first half at Anfield, the Reds had a stonewall penalty denied to them after Martin Odegaard deliberately handled the ball, but neither Chris Kavanagh nor anyone on VAR saw fit to award a spot kick.
The PGMOL’s chief refereeing officer talked through the incident on Sky Sports and admitted that the infringement should’ve been penalised, although one journalist believes that the former top-flight official failed to address one key question from the VAR audio after it was broadcast.
ESPN FC editor Dale Johnson posted on X: “On the Martin Odegaard handball, which should have been a penalty to Liverpool. Understandable that the referee may not have seen what happened correctly, and thought that the Arsenal player’s arm was supporting, but the VAR review seemed too quick.
“The VAR, David Coote, says it’s ‘check complete for me’. The AVAR, Lee Betts, agrees from ‘the brief look I’ve seen’. In some past mistakes, especially the Luis Diaz offside, the AVAR was not fully involved to avoid an error.
“Had the AVAR asked to see the replays to gain a rounded view of the incident, would he have said handball? That’s the question I would have asked here. What went wrong with the process? Why was it check complete? Why did the AVAR not have full involvement?”
While the VAR audio from the Odegaard incident wasn’t quite as horrendously damning as the exchange which took place surrounding Luis Diaz’s wrongly disallowed goal against Tottenham earlier in the season, it still portrays the officials involved in a very poor light.
Even if the Arsenal midfielder was slightly off-balance, it was patently clear that he moved his arm towards the ball and basically scooped it away. Whatever about Kavanagh missing it, how could Coote and Betts in Stockley Park not deem it worthy of an intervention to the on-field referee to review it on the pitchside monitor?
Also, as Johnson rightly asks, why was the AVAR not involved to a greater extent in the conversation between the officials? If they’re barely going to be utilised, what’s the point of even having him there?
The whole episode yet again shines a sorry light on a process which was supposed to eradicate refereeing errors from football but merely seems to compound them, or create problems which wouldn’t have arisen without VAR in place.
The sport should absolutely have technological assistance in order to try and reduce the regularity of obvious mistakes from officials, but the manner in which it’s implemented in the Premier League has been comical ever since its initial implementation in 2019/20.
Don’t hold your breath for Webb to demand an improvement to refereeing standards, either.
More must-reads: