VAR has made four errors, says chief Riley

REFEREES’ chief Mike Riley has admitted that four mistakes have been made by the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) in the Premier League so far this season.

Riley, a former referee and the managing director of the officials’ body Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL), addressed attendees at the Premier League shareholders’ meeting in central London yesterday.

Riley pinpointed two penalties which should have been awarded to Manchester City and West Ham, and that a Newcastle goal should have been ruled out for offside.

It is understood that he told top-flight chairmen that Leicester midfielder Youri Tielemans

Hands up: Ref chief Mike Riley

should also have been sent off for his challenge on Bournemouth’s Callum Wilson on August 31.

The decision not to award City a penalty when David Silva was tripped in the box by Bournemouth’s Jefferson Lerma on August 25 was judged to be an error, as was the failure to give a spot-kick to Hammers forward Sebastien Haller when he was fouled by Norwich’s Tom Trybull in the match on August 31.

Also, on August 31, Fabian Schar’s goal for Newcastle against Watford should have been ruled out for a handball in the build-up by Isaac Hayden.

Riley said: “If you look at the four match rounds, 227 incidents have been checked. We’ve changed six decisions, (and) we think we should have changed 10 in total.

“That gives you the scale of where VAR can help and add value. But it also demonstrates that this is still about refereeing a game of Premier League football.” SEAN Dyche is happy to give Danny Drinkwater a second chance after the midfielder was injured in an incident outside a nightclub in Manchester.

The on-loan Chelsea man was pictured with facial injuries after allegedly being involved in a drunken dispute with another footballer and also suffered an ankle problem that is set to rule him out for several weeks.

Dyche is known as a manager who values professionalism highly but, publicly, he declined to criticise Drinkwater, saying: “They (footballers) are human beings, they have private lives, which sometimes are not private. And sometimes they get in scrapes.

Ruled out: Danny Drinkwater

“He’s certainly old enough and wise enough to know you do whatever you can not to get in scrapes, but sometimes it happens.

“We’ve been big over our time here — you can’t just talk about development when it’s good news, you also have to work with players if things are not quite as good.

“It’s been more that sort of situation, have a chat with him and say, ‘What happened first of all, what was the situation that led to it? Okay, let’s move away from that, where do we go from here?’. So I think that’s where we’re at right now.”

Dyche declined to reveal whether Burnley, who host Brighton at Turf Moor tomorrow, have punished Drinkwater, who had also pleaded guilty to a drink-driving charge earlier this year, saying: “Just talked to him, the rest of it’s private.

“I’m not worried about the past, we try and look for the things we can sort out for the future.”