Former Premier League referee Howard Webb has said that refereeing and the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) have barely made any mistakes this season.
Arsenal have had two controversial decisions go against them this season alone. The Gunners are the only club in the Premier League to have had a player sent off for kicking the ball away.
Declan Rice was shown a second yellow against Brighton, which led to Arsenal dropping points in that game.
A few weeks later, Leandro Trossard was also sent off against Manchester City after he kicked the ball away after a foul on Bernardo Silva.
Howard Webb insists VAR has not made many mistakes this season
The former Premier League referee denies the fact that Arsenal have been targeted this season. Webb explained the decisions that went against Arsenal this season on the Stick to Football podcast.
The chief of referees for PGMOL explained what went on during Leandro Trossard’s sending off:
“We ask the referees to try and identify situations that are clear, deliberate, and impact on the ability of the other team to restart the game,” Webb told the Stick to Football podcast.
“For example, there was a comparison made a couple of weeks ago between what Leandro Trossard did, in the Manchester City vs Arsenal game, and what Dominik Szoboszlai did in the Liverpool vs Nottingham Forest game.”
“They are incomparable in terms of the impact – one happened on a free kick to Manchester City, in an attacking area in added time at the end of the first half. Trossard kicked the ball away and prevented City from being able to even think about restarting the game quickly, which I’m sure they would want to as it was 2-1 to Arsenal at the time.”
Former Premier League referee defends Liverpool incident
A few days after the Declan Rice incident, Dominik Szoboszlai also kicked the ball away during Liverpool’s game against Nottingham Forest.
Howard Webb explained that the incident was different from what happened in the Brighton game:
“The other one, Liverpool were down at home to Forest, 1-0, it’s in 90+4 minutes, and there’s an offside or a foul given against Liverpool, and Szoboszlai, in frustration, kicks the ball across the penalty area,” Webb said.
“He’s wasting his own time. It would be crazy for us to caution him at that point for kicking a ball away, when Forest would be saying ‘thanks a lot’. (If we cautioned him) we’d be seen as totally out of touch with the game in that situation.
“Whereas the other one was impactful on City being able to restart the game. In that situation, there were City players ready to restart, but there were no Forest players around and they wouldn’t have restarted quickly anyway. People ask us to understand the game, so that made total sense to me.”