VAR was wrong: City should have been given early penalty

Ican understand Pep Guardiola feeling hard done by because his Manchester City side should have been awarded a penalty for Trent Alexander-arnold’s handball just six minutes into the match at Anfield. It is exactly the sort of clear and obvious error that VAR was introduced to deal with, and City should have had a spot-kick. The error was made particularly painful for the fact Liverpool went straight up the other end and scored, so it is not hard to see why Guardiola was so irate.

I felt that Alexander-arnold’s arm was away from his body, and his intervention prevented the ball from reaching a City player at the back post – making it a clear handball. In contrast, the penalty shout at the end against the same player was correctly not given, because Alexander-arnold’s arm was by his side and he had no time to react as it was hit straight at him from close range.

I have seen suggestions that because the ball hit Bernardo Silva’s hand before striking Alexander-arnold the officials would not have been able to award City a penalty. Crucially, the Premier League insisted a spotkick was not awarded because Alexander-arnold’s hand was not in an unnatural position, rather than because of Silva’s role in the incident. Taking them at face value I believe they have made the wrong call, although the fact there is so much conjecture on this point also serves to show what a mess we are in over the handball law.

You could say the same for how VAR is dealing with offsides. To the naked eye Mohamed Salah looked like he may well have been offside before heading in Liverpool’s second. VAR disagreed and the goal was correctly given.

Nothing to see here, you might think. But I fear we are now at a stage where we do not trust the technology and the images we are seeing. Is the line straight? Are the cameras of sufficient quality and in the right positions to make these calls with definitive proof? I am not sure they are, and we will have more situations like that farcical decision to disallow Sheffield United’s goal at Tottenham.

Clearly VAR is not working in the manner in which it is currently being used. We are making our top officials, such as Michael Oliver – who had another impressive game yesterday – look foolish. It is so frustrating for everyone involved.