Silva's VAR plea
EVERTON boss Marco Silva was left fuming after Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s clincher for Arsenal was allowed to stand.
Aubameyang was ahead of Toffees defender Jonjoe Kenny when he slotted home the Gunners’ crucial second. And Silva, who claimed the introduction of VAR
cannot come soon enough, said it should have been blatantly obvious to assistant referee Harry Lennard that Aubameyang was offside when he was set up by Aaron Ramsey.
“It’s really frustrating and I tell you why,” he said. “In that moment we had just one player in our box.
“It’s too clear to the assistant. It’s two against one or even three against one. We have just Jonjoe inside the box.
“It’s clear on the second touch where the player who finishes is – he’s clearly offside. For me, it’s a little bit strange.
“They had scored a great goal but we were in control at that moment. It was really hard for us. We didn’t deserve this result – we clearly deserved more.”
Silva claimed the introduction of VAR would make sure officials get key decisions right.
He added: “VAR will help for sure. I think it’s important. I understand what they’re thinking, that they don’t want it stopping the game all the time.
“They’re trying to find the best way to do it in the future, as soon as possible – maybe next season we’ll have VAR here.”
Arsenal boss Unai Emery planned to replace Alexandre Lacazette with Alex Iwobi just before he bagged his wonder goal in the 56th minute to open the scoring. Asked about the plan, Emery said: “In this moment we need change. We needed another individual quality, another individual pushing forward. But he produced the goal and I decided to stop it.”
Gunners keeper Petr Cech was in superb form, denying Everton with a string of saves.
The 36-year-old has faced criticism for failing to deal with the demands of Emery’s possession-based approach.
Aubameyang said: “I think, 20 times maybe, Cech kept us in the game.”
Lacazette added: “A big thanks to Petr because he took a lot of balls and we won our first clean sheet.”