Premier League referees to meet after weekend of VAR mistakes

Referees were all over the headlines in the Premier League this past weekend due to major and costly VAR mistakes. Three major misses had a pivotal say over the final score of games with significant importance. As a result, Premier League referee chief Howard Webb called a meeting for Tuesday.

The meeting addresses what happened in the West Ham-Chelsea, Brighton-Crystal Palace and the Arsenal-Brentford games. In the first, there was seemingly a clear handball in the box from West Ham’s Tomas Soucek. VAR deemed it not to be a handball, much to the displeasure of Chelsea on Twitter.

Elsewhere, VAR official John Brooks wrongly disallowed a Brighton goal against Crystal Palace. Brooks drew the offside lines incorrectly, and the goal did not stand. If Brooks drew the lines correctly from Mark Guéhi, the goal would have stood. Then, in Arsenal’s game against Brentford, VAR official Lee Mason only looked at one Brentford player’s position, Ethan Pinnock, who was onside. Christian Nørgaard, who played the ball in the buildup to Ivan Toney’s equalizer, was offside. The goal should not have counted.

As a result of Mason’s blunder, Arsenal dropped points again, shrinking the lead at the top of the table to three with a game against Manchester City on Wednesday.

Referee meeting to address VAR mistakes in Premier League

John Brooks, the VAR official for the Brighton-Palace game, had the same role for Monday’s Merseyside Derby between Everton and Liverpool and Wednesday’s Arsenal-City fixture. However, the referee body removed Brooks from those assignments. In his stead, Andre Marriner and David Coote will be the VAR officials, respectively.

Howard Webb is an advocate for VAR. Still, he admits that he holds his officials to a higher standard. The meeting on Tuesday will go over the most recent calamities, while also deciding the referee assignments for the upcoming weekend’s set of games.

These three mistakes are not the first instances of VAR being the headline following key games. The offside ruling in the Manchester derby for Bruno Fernandes’s goal was certainly a hot topic, as was Gabriel Martinelli’s opener against Manchester United.

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