Arsenal victim of major VAR error as new details uncovers a huge injustice that could cost them PL title
Brentford’s disputed equalizing goal against Arsenal was upheld after it was discovered that the VAR official, Lee Mason, failed to draw the lines that would have indicated that Christian Norgaard was in an offside position during the lead-up to Ivan Toney’s goal.
Mikel Arteta was greatly upset when Leandro Trossard’s first goal for his team was annulled due to two mistakes made by the officials during the review of the incident. This prevented Arsenal from extending their lead at the top of the table by eight points.
During the review, Lee Mason took three minutes to determine that Ethan Pinnock was not obstructing play by blocking Gabriel Magalhaes from reaching the ball. This decision was questioned by Arteta after the game.
“The action when you get blocked when you are offside,” said the Arsenal manager. “You cannot block if you are offside.
“Looking at the images, you have to apply certain principles in defending and you do that by sticking to the rules and suddenly you apply different rules then you have to change your principles.
“So tell us before because then you don’t hold the line that high because you’re always going to have an advantage if you get blocked.”
To make matters worse, Lee Mason then made another mistake by approving Toney’s header without verifying if Norgaard had gone past Ben White, Arsenal’s last defender, before directing the ball towards Brentford’s leading scorer.
“Ivan puts the ball in the net and VAR Lee Mason obviously runs through the checks,’ said Mail on Sunday referee expert and PGMOL representative Chris Foy, who was in the Match Centre at Stockley Park on Saturday.
“VAR was looking to see if there was an offside and whether Ethan Pinnock had blocked off Gabriel in the build-up.
“He looked at the possible foul and decided there hadn’t been one and therefore referee Peter Bankes hadn’t made a clear and obvious error.
“However, in the build-up to the goal, Christian Norgaard — whose cross it is that Toney heads in — is in an offside position.
“However, the truth is that VAR didn’t fully investigate with the lines. The lines, simply, didn’t go down. And that counts as human error.
“Had the lines gone down the goal would have been disallowed for offside.”
Arsenal victim of major VAR error as new details uncovers a huge injustice that could cost them PL title
