Alexis Mac Allister\u2019s late intervention at the City Ground produced a turbulent close to Liverpool\u2019s trip to Nottingham Forest as VAR again placed the handball law under the spotlight.<\/p>\n
Mac Allister struck in the seventh minute of stoppage time to seemingly win the match, but the celebration was followed by a VAR review that threatened to undo the finish. The goal was belatedly checked and cleared to confirm a 1\u20130 win.<\/p>\n
The Premier League\u2019s official match centre X account deferred to the referee\u2019s on-field explanation. \u201cAfter review,\u201d Taylor told the City Ground crowd, \u201cthe ball hits the arm of the goal scorer, Liverpool No. 10. Therefore, it\u2019s an accidental handball by the goal scorer, so the final decision is a direct free kick.\u201d<\/p>\n
Handball remains one of the most contested laws in modern football. The FA Handbook\u2019s Law 12 removes the need to prove intent in certain scoring situations, stating it is a handball offence if a player \u201cscores in the opponents\u2019 goal directly from their hand\/arm, even if accidental\u201d or \u201cimmediately after the ball has touched their hand\/arm.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mac Allister argued to anyone who would listen that the ball struck the top of his arm, outside the prescribed boundary. \u201cIt hit my back and my elbow. I understand the rule but if you understand football, that goal should have stood,\u201d he argued. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t feel nice in the moment but it is what it is. VAR is a good tool if you look at the mistakes the referees used to make. We need to waste these seconds or minutes because it\u2019s best for football.<\/p>\n
To clarify which parts of the body are in scope, the FA Handbook states: \u201cFor the purposes of determining handball offences, the upper boundary of the arm is in line with the bottom of the armpit.\u201d Images from the incident show contact on the elbow, a point that places the strike within the handball range.<\/p>\n
Intriguingly, the Premier League opted not to officially comment on the goal that delivered Liverpool three points. While Mac Allister\u2019s close-range finish itself carried no controversy, there was a suggestion of offside involving two teammates that attracted attention in the closing moments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
VAR check ended the match with Liverpool winning 1\u20130 as Mac Allister\u2019s goal survived review. images .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7025,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,298,969],"tags":[1023,1162],"class_list":["post-7026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-nottingham-forest","category-premier-league","tag-alexis-mac-allister","tag-analytics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7026","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=7026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}