Danny Murphy furious about VAR handball decision at Everton
The decision not to award a penalty for handball in the Everton v Manchester City game was “incompetence at its highest level” according to Danny Murphy.
Rodri appeared to commit a clear infringement in the penalty area late in the 1-0 defeat for the Toffees, but referee Paul Tierney and VAR Chris Kavanagh let it go, leaving Frank Lampard and his team outraged.
The club’s CEO Denise Barrett-Baxendale has made a formal complaint to the Premier League demanding an apology, according to The Athletic.
In a clip posted on the talkSPORT Twitter account, former Liverpool player Murphy says: “We all watch a lot of football, doesn’t matter that I’m an ex-pro or not. That is an obvious pen.
“This was ridiculously clear. I’m frustrated because sometimes you can sit here and debate, but I don’t see anybody [saying it wasn’t]”.
Host Sam Matterface was similarly incredulous and adds: “Even Trevor Sinclair who is the most one-eyed Manchester City fan in the entire world said: ‘Hey, hold on. That’s a penalty’.”
Unbelievable decision
Toffees fans might be slightly suspicious of Murphy’s outrage considering his Reds past and the fact that the beneficiaries of the decision are currently battling Jurgen Klopp’s side for the title.
But frankly, the decision appears to be uniting most of the country in bewilderment at how the visitors got away with it.
So far it appears that only City’s manager has tried to deny that it was a handball, with Pep Guardiola shutting down the line of questioning to Sky Sports after the match in claiming “it was offside”.
The league has subsequently confirmed that it was a decision on the handball itself that resulted in no penalty being given, with The Athletic reporting the offside did not affect that.
Even the Catalan would probably have to admit that the incident itself was pretty unequivocal.
It is this sort of incident that VAR was specifically supposed to prevent, and it would have done had the system been used correctly.
It is impossible however to legislate for the scarcely believable decision-making of the officials themselves, with Kavanagh this time coming up with a wild one.
In other Everton news, a former referee has shared a further reason why the decision not to refer the incident back to the monitor was terrible.