Norwich missed out on the chance to move outside of the bottom three as they were beaten 3-1 by Manchester United.
Whilst United produced an excellent performance, most of the talk following the match been about VAR – after it made two controversial decisions to award United penalties.
The first one was given against Ben Godfrey for an apparent challenge on Dan James, despite replays showing that it was the latter – if anyone – who committed a foul.
Twitter: “Daniel James has gone into him!”
The #RefWatch panel were not impressed with the VAR decision to overrule the ref… https://t.co/8whUiE1yRS (@SkySportsNews)
These fans reacted to the decision…
Sucks…
Twitter: @SkySportsNews Honestly, English premiership #VAR sucks (@EhizG)
Harsh on James…
Twitter: @SkySportsNews James diving again and VAR giving Man Utd around 6 or 7 pens already this season and they say Liverp… https://t.co/dONIqoQu0b (@nagertomo1)
Rubbish…
Twitter: @SkySportsNews Rubbish of the VAR team. Absolutely ridiculous! (@WhiteGh76944515)
Never…
Twitter: @SkySportsNews Never been a pen (@mattkitson2)
Even United fans…
Twitter: @SkySportsNews Not even us United fans were impressed. Never a pen. (@Muted79)
READ NORWICH VERDICT
Whilst it was a terrible decision, as you can see from the expert panel’s conversation in the clip, the bigger problem is that there is no clarity. VAR was in use for the first nine gameweeks of the Premier League season and refused to overrule the ref for subjective calls, but now this weekend they appear to be going against that way of working – without any indication that it was going to be the case.
The on-field referee had a great view of the “challenge” and did not award the penalty, which was the right call, and the referee in the VAR booth managed to watch the replays – which make it look even less of a foul – and award the penalty. This completely undermines the on-field referee, who made the right call, and makes a mockery of the points of VAR – to make the right decisions.
