Peter Walton suggests ‘communication issue’ may have been behind failure to award Everton penalty
Everton should have been awarded a penalty for a “deliberate handball” from Rodri at Goodison Park, and the VAR should have referred it back, says Peter Walton.
The former Premier League referee and now BT Sport pundit believes Paul Tierney could not see the incident clearly, and is especially clear that video official Chris Kavanagh should have sent him to view it again on the pitch-side monitor because of this.
Speaking to The Times Walton said: “Rodri leaned towards the ball and it struck him on the arm, making it a deliberate handball.
“I suspect referee Paul Tierney was blind-sided, which would explain why he waved away Everton’s protests, and the VAR Chris Kavanagh should have given him an opportunity to make amends.
“Kavanagh adjudged that no clear and obvious error had been made, but there is less evidence required for an overturn when the on-field referee does not have a clear view.
“Perhaps there was a communication issue between Tierney and Kavanagh.”
Unbelievable
It certainly seems like there was a communication issue because anything that prevented Kavanagh communicating that Tierney should go and watch it again has to be considered an issue.
It is bad enough that the decision was missed by both the on-pitch referee and his assistant.
But for the video official to clearly see what the vast majority of people are clear was a handball and be fully confident that nothing was missed is astounding.
Unless the rule is going to be clarified that any fraction of the ball contacting the ‘t-shirt line’ of a players arm constitutes a legal move it was baffling.
Comfortably more than two thirds of the ball hit the Manchester City midfielder below that line, and former referees are as amazed as the rest of us.
Not only has Walton said it should have been a penalty but Mark Clattenburg writes in the Daily Mail that it was “the clearest handball I’ve ever seen that wasn’t given”.
The slightest of doubts over whether the error was “clear and obvious” appear to have been removed as Walton says the same standards do not apply to incidents the referee didn’t see clearly.
So there really was no excuse not to send the decision back to Tierney, and the fact it played such a key role in the outcome of the game, and potentially the season at both ends of the table, is unacceptable.
In other Everton news, FFP is reportedly making one Toffee’s future uncertain.