PGMOL confirm review into VAR decision in Arsenal - Brentford game
PGMOL have confirmed they will review the 'human errors' which led to Brentford's equaliser against Arsenal being ruled onside, and Pervis Estupinan's goal vs Crystal Palace being ruled offside.
The Gunners were incredibly hard done by in their 1-1 draw with Brentford on Saturday at the Emirates Stadium, seeing an Ivan Toney equaliser be ruled onside after a lengthy VAR review - a review over one phase of play, but not the other in which Christian Norgaard was offside.
In another 3pm kick-off, Brighton were similarly hard done by, with a goal scored Estupinan being ruled out after the VAR officials failed to spot that Marc Guehi was the last man back behind James Tomkins.
A statement on the decisions from PGMOL (Professional Game Match Officials) reads: "PGMOL can confirm its Chief Refereeing Officer Howard Webb has contacted both Arsenal and Brighton & Hove Albion to acknowledge and explain the significant errors in the VAR process in their respective Premier League fixtures on Saturday.
"Both incidents, which were due to human error and related to the analysis of offside situations, are being thoroughly reviewed by PGMOL."
PGMOL representative Chris Foy also discussed the decision in the Arsenal game in an interview with the Daily Mail, stating: "VAR was looking to see if there was an offside and whether Ethan Pinnock had blocked off Gabriel in the build-up. He looked at the possible foul and decided there hadn’t been one and therefore referee Peter Bankes hadn’t made a clear and obvious error.
"However, in the build-up to the goal, Christian Norgaard - whose cross it is that Toney heads in - is in an offside position.
"However, the truth is that VAR didn’t fully investigate with the lines. The lines, simply, didn’t go down. And that counts as human error. Had the lines gone down the goal would have been disallowed for offside."