Howard Webb has publicly disagreed with Mikel Arteta\u2019s criticism of a non-penalty decision after Arsenal\u2019s late 2\u20131 victory over Newcastle United. The incident occurred when Gy\u00f6keres rounded Newcastle United\u2019s goalkeeper Nick Pope midway through the first half. Arsenal argued for a penalty after contact was made, but Webb says the VAR intervention showed the full sequence.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was an important part around this in that the referee didn\u2019t recognise that touch by Pope in real time,\u201d Webb explained on Match Officials Mic\u2019d Up .<\/p>\n
Webb outlined the process that led the VAR to recommend a review and why the referee then went to the pitchside monitor.<\/p>\n
\u201cHence the reason that when the VAR saw it, he deemed it to be a clear and obvious error because that touch by Pope hadn\u2019t been seen, and therefore the referee could go to the screen to look at that really important aspect and make a judgement for himself, and the judgement was: I\u2019ve seen the touch, therefore it\u2019s not a foul, and I\u2019m going to start with the drop ball.\u201d<\/p>\n
Supporters of Arsenal pointed to the sending off of Robert S\u00e1nchez for Chelsea against Manchester United earlier this season, where S\u00e1nchez also made contact with the ball before connecting with a forward, Bryan Mbeumo. Webb rejected the comparison and described key differences between the two incidents.<\/p>\n
\u201cPope then plants his foot on the ground. He doesn\u2019t drive it forward into Gy\u00f6keres,\u201d Webb said. \u201cThere\u2019s a gap, clearly a gap, between the two players after Pope has played the ball, and then the two players come together quite normally. The action by Pope is normal. It\u2019s not reckless. It\u2019s just a kick out towards the ball. The ball deviates.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo contact on the player until the ball has been played away, and then the contact happens fairly normally. So, not a foul, and therefore a good use of the VAR to intervene to show the referee what really happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
Webb\u2019s explanation concentrates on the sequence of touch, the referee\u2019s initial lack of sight, and how VAR restored the correct on-field decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Webb rejects Arteta’s call after VAR showed Pope brushed the ball, explaining why no foul was given.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3450,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,194,172],"tags":[260],"class_list":["post-3451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-newcastle-united","category-epl","tag-bryan-mbeumo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3451","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=3451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}