Arsenal held on for a 1\u20130 win after a dramatic stoppage-time incident at London Stadium. Early in stoppage time referee Chris Kavanagh signalled that Callum Wilson\u2019s 95th-minute effort had crossed the line, but a lengthy VAR review followed and the original decision was overturned.<\/p>\n
The review centred on contact between West Ham striker Pablo and Arsenal goalkeeper David Raya. Arteta was quick to gesture that Raya had been impeded. Replays showed Pablo with his arm across Raya\u2019s chest just before the goalkeeper went to ground. The VAR process examined whether that contact affected Raya\u2019s ability to claim the ball, which he had failed to hold initially.<\/p>\n
A pitchside review was recommended and the referee judged that Pablo had unfairly impacted Raya\u2019s ability to claim the ball. The match report from the scene read: \u201cAfter review, West Ham number 19 commits a foul on the goalkeeper. Final decision is direct free kick.\u201d The decisive ruling removed what would have been a late equaliser for West Ham and left Arsenal in control as the final whistle followed.<\/p>\n
The outcome carried wider consequences for both clubs. Awarding the goal would have reopened the Premier League title race by inviting Manchester City back into contention, while striking it out left Arsenal in a stronger position and further eroded West Ham\u2019s survival prospects. Arsenal were subsequently awarded a free kick from which they closed out the game.<\/p>\n
Fans on social media were quick to reference a similar early-season incident. In the first gameweek Arsenal beat Manchester United 1\u20130 at Old Trafford with a header from Riccardo Calafiori 13 minutes into the game. Altay Bay\u0131nd\u0131r immediately protested the goal and argued he had been impeded by William Saliba.<\/p>\n
The late VAR intervention at London Stadium will be debated for days, both for its immediate effect on the table and for its echoes of incidents earlier in the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Late VAR overturn at London Stadium erased West Ham’s stoppage-time equaliser and sparked debate….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13731,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1381,172],"tags":[1162,1664],"class_list":["post-13732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal-match-reports","category-epl","tag-analytics","tag-var-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}