VAR review: There are a few moving parts to this, though in VAR terms it was a clear decision with an obvious gap between the two lines for Van de Ven and the Arsenal defender, Gabriel .
The offside phase is set at the point Pedro Porro strikes the shot. Even though Takehiro Tomiyasu makes an attempted block, and the ball then comes off the head of Gabriel before it runs to Van de Ven, neither of these actions reset the phase to put the Tottenham player back onside.
The offside law requires a defender to make a “deliberate play” of the ball, yet this is about a player having the genuine expectation of a controlled outcome from their action. That doesn’t excuse a poor pass, but it does mean that an instinctive block of a shot hit with power cannot be considered a “deliberate play” — so Van de Ven remains active from the shot.
Possible penalty: Rice challenge on Davies What happened: Ben Davies moved onto the ball in the 84th minute and went down after appearing to be kicked by Declan Rice . Referee Oliver immediately indicated there should be no penalty but very quickly the VAR, Jarred Gillet, sent him to the monitor for a penalty. (watch here
VAR decision: Penalty, scored by Son Heung-Min .
VAR review: This caused a great deal of controversy, yet the VAR decision was quite straight-forward. We can discuss where the VAR places the line for normal football contact to become a foul: see the hands in the back of Gabriel by Joelinton before Anthony Gordon ‘s goal for Newcastle against Arsenal , or Morgan Gibbs-White performing a similar move on Nélson Semedo before scoring for Nottingham Forest against Wolverhampton Wanderers — the goals stood in both cases.
The timing always has an influence, as the goal would have provided Chelsea with a late winning goal having come from two goals down with under half an hour to play. Boss Mauricio Pochettino said “we want to be the best league in the world it should be protecting the spectacle and the decision” — which effectively means he didn’t want such a dramatic late goal in his team’s favour to be ruled out, which is understandable.
VAR review: This was a near carbon copy of an incident in the first week of the season when Onana came out and clattered into Wolves striker Sasa Kalajdzic. On that occasion the VAR failed to get involved, an error which was immediately admitted by PGMOL.
Onana gets nowhere near playing the ball and takes out Amdouni; it’s worse than Kalajdzic as in this incident the goalkeeper connects with the head of the opponent.
There was also a collision between Manchester City goalkeeper Éderson and Nottingham Forest’s Willy Boly on Sunday, in that case both players were jumping in to challenge and it would be seen as a natural coming together.
VAR review: This was a close one for the VAR to make a judgement on; was the contact by Holgate on Gordon on the line or outside the area? It was very close to being overturned to a free kick.
Key is that referee Tony Harrington gave the penalty for the second contact, so the VAR has to make his judgement on where that took place — though it could be argued the first contact was the foul, and that was just outside the box.
Gordon has won many penalties this season by getting himself in front a defender and waiting for the contact. This isn’t the same as initiating, when a player moves their foot out of its natural line to give the impression that the defender has made a challenge.
VAR review: There could have been two reasons to overturn this penalty, though the clearest was that Murphy got the ball before the coming together caused Bogle to go to ground.
Even if Harrington hadn’t decided to cancel the foul and restart with a dropped ball, it could be argued that Murphy had to go through Bogle to get to the ball — though that contact would have been outside the area too.
VAR review: It would have been almost impossible for referee Darren England and his on-field team to see this, and it needed a replay from behind the goal to identify touch of the hand of the Everton defender.
Much like the decision not to intervene on the possible handball by Ashley Young against Nottingham Forest last week, it shows how the VAR in the Premier League is only expected to get involved in the obvious handball offences when the arm is well away from the body or above the head.
It’s likely that like this kind of handball would be penalised in other leagues, especially LaLiga, but not in England with its more lenient approach.
