{"id":822196,"date":"2026-11-02T23:32:10","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T23:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/822196\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T23:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T23:32:10","slug":"andy-madley-and-var-should-take-credit-they-got-major-anfield-calls-right-video-assistant-referees-vars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/822196\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Madley and VAR should take credit \u2013 they got major Anfield calls right | Video assistant referees (VARs)"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was one incident that got everyone talking at the weekend, and that was the decision not to award Liverpool<\/a> a penalty in their match against Arsenal after Alexander Isak had his shirt pulled by Jurri\u00ebn Timber as he tried to get his head to a Bradley\u00a0Barcola cross.<\/p>\n

The on-field decision from the referee, Andy Madley, was no penalty and it was a call backed by the video assistant referee, Stuart Attwell. After the match the Liverpool head coach, Andoni Iraola, said there had been a \u201cclear, clear pull\u201d<\/a> and when the footage is slowed down or freeze\u2011framed, that looks to be true. But at full speed, the contact appears minimal and not sustained: Timber\u00a0is using one hand and tugs briefly on the shirt, and the impact on Isak\u2019s movement is arguable.<\/p>\n

There is a high bar for penalising contact in the Premier League<\/a> and that has to be taken into account by Attwell. Iraola said that he would encourage his players to go down in similar situations in future, but the incident was assessed by the VAR and didn\u2019t clear the bar in his opinion on the day. For the VAR to overturn an on-field decision there needs to have been a \u201cclear and obvious error\u201d and that is not the case here in my view.<\/p>\n

Later there was a great piece of refereeing from Madley that got approval from a lot of pundits, and I agree with them. The moment came in the 79th\u00a0minute after a\u00a0foul by Alexis Mac Allister on Martin \u00d8degaard. There is a coming together of a number of players and Noni Madueke squares up to Mac Allister. The pair\u2019s heads touch with Mac\u00a0Allister then falling to the ground as if seriously hurt. It\u2019s always been the case that players look to ask a question of the referee. This was how it was when I was refereeing in the Premier League and it has not changed, with or without VAR. Here the question Madley had to answer was whether the contact by Madueke on Mac Allister added up to violent conduct. Clearly the answer to that was no. Madley gave a yellow card to Mac Allister but not to Madueke, who had been carded earlier, and the VAR did not intervene to recommend a review given there was no evidence of a missed red card. Madley deserves all the compliments he received for the way he handled it.<\/p>\n

This was the busiest weekend of the season so far for VAR, with seven overturns across the first nine games. One intervention helps to draw a contrast with what happened, or did not happen, at Anfield, and that\u2019s the decision to send off Jean-Philippe Mateta<\/a> after VAR upgraded a yellow card to a red.<\/p>\n

Andy Madley booked Alexis Mac Allister but not Noni Madueke during their altercation at Anfield. Photograph: Phil Noble\/Reuters<\/p>\n

The situation followed a foul by the Crystal Palace striker early in their game against Tottenham. Mateta was trying to recover possession and tackled Micky van de Ven from behind. The Frenchman was awarded a yellow card by the referee, Michael Oliver, but when the VAR, Jarred Gillett, reviewed the footage he could see that not only was Mateta coming in from behind, he was well away from the ball and made full contact with his studs on Van\u00a0de\u00a0Ven\u2019s achilles. Gillett recommended that Oliver go to the monitor to review his decision, which he did, sending Mateta off.<\/p>\n

The VAR can initiate a review if he believes a \u201cserious incident\u201d has been missed by the referee. Here, Gillett was able to see what Oliver couldn\u2019t:\u00a0that Mateta\u2019s challenge was a case of serious foul play which occurs when a player endangers the safety of an opponent or uses excessive force. The contact with Van de Ven\u2019s achilles was clearly dangerous. It clears the high bar for intervention in a\u00a0way that the pull on Isak did not. It was a good piece of work by Gillett and Oliver.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, VAR helped to achieve the correct outcome in a number of crucial events. An overturn in the Aston Villa v Fulham match<\/a> rightly ended in Villa being awarded a penalty after the ball struck the arm of Sander Berge in an unnatural position. Chelsea were given a penalty against Manchester United after an aggressive challenge by Lisandro Mart\u00ednez, who led with an arm, was initially missed on-field. Mart\u00ednez was correctly handed a second yellow card<\/a>, and a dismissal. At Stamford Bridge there were also two goals \u2013 one for each side \u2013 correctly overturned after they were assessed by the VAR using semi\u2011automated offside technology.<\/p>\n

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Lisandro Mart\u00ednez was penalised for leading with an arm against Wesley Fofana, conceding a penalty and being shown a second yellow card. Photograph: Tom Jenkins\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Coventry conceded a penalty in their 3-1 win against Sunderland<\/a> after the VAR spotted a handball by Ethan\u00a0Pinnock. Leeds had a goal overturned at Bournemouth<\/a> after Dominic Calvert-Lewin was found\u00a0to have handled the ball on its way into the net,\u00a0which has to be disallowed even if accidental under the\u00a0laws of the game.<\/p>\n

That is a lot of activity at the Premier League\u2019s VAR hub and the most notable thing was overall how quickly and smoothly it was dealt with by various sets\u00a0of officials. Debate over the Isak decision may provide the main refereeing talking point before the next round of fixtures, but we should also take note when the system is working as it should.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was one incident that got everyone talking at the weekend, and that was the decision not to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":822197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-822196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=822196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/822197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=822196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=822196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=822196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}