Current Tottenham news: following the issues that arose during Spurs’ loss to Aston Villa, former referee Dermot Gallagher delivered his assessment on VAR.
Some VAR problems arose in the first moments of Sunday’s Premier League match between Tottenham and Aston Villa. There were some VAR issues, as several broadcasters have reported, but they were promptly fixed. Former Premier League referee Dermot Gallagher has shed light on what transpired at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
The VAR was operational. He said on Sky Sports News’ Ref Watch, “The feed was going into Stockley Park, they could see everything, the problem was it wasn’t relaying to the monitor in the ground.” Thus, in the event that the VAR reviewed an incident, he would have needed to inform the referee of what he had observed. The referee was unable to access the monitor.
He went on to say, “The referee is there to referee the game,” in reference to the game continuing despite the issues. As a backup, there is the VAR. They were at the mercy of the VAR for the brief ten minutes that it took for it to be fixed. In the ground, everyone was aware that it wasn’t functioning. All of the broadcasters were informed, and I heard the VAR inform the referee, “This has been cleared.” As a result, they were constantly monitoring everything.”
Even though it was only out of commission for a brief period of time, the game began chaotically with many Spurs supporters upset that certain decisions did not go their way. The first came after Brennan Johnson fired a shot back into the danger area that Emiliano Martinez failed to stop after Dejan Kulusevski’s shot struck the post.
Ezri Konsa appeared to handle the ball as a result, and Diego Carlos was lucky to escape after giving up a penalty and being sent off a few seconds later.Roy Keane expressed his disapproval of the incident at halftime, with Bryan Gil appearing to be elbowed in the face by Carlos as he tried to pick up the pieces.
He said on Sky Sports: “What a silly boy. When you raise your elbow in a swinging motion, he appears to have little chance of winning the ball, but in reality, he is extremely fortunate.” In spite of the VAR problems, neither Konsa’s nor Carlos’s incident was given a thorough investigation, which is a strong indication that the Stockley Park team did not consider it to be a serious incident.
