Real reasons why Brentford’s equaliser against Arsenal was allowed have been revealed.
The controversial goal was only allowed to stand because the VAR official Lee Mason forgot to draw the lines that would have shown Christian Norgaard was offside in the build-up.
Mikel Arteta had lambasted match officials after the game, wondering why they failed to rule out the goal even when it appeared that a Brighton player was clearly offside before the goal was scored by Ivan Toney.
Leandro Trossard’s opener was cancelled out after the match officials made two errors while reviewing the incident which prevented Arsenal from opening up an eight-point lead at the top of the table.
The video assistant officials led by Mason took three minutes to review the incidents that happened before the goal and ended up saying that Ethan Pinnock was not interfering with play by blocking Arsenal defender Gabriel Magalhaes from getting to the ball initially, a decision disputed by Arteta after the game.
Mason then compounded that error by greenlighting Toney’s header and forgetting to check whether Norgaard had strayed beyond Ben White, Arsenal’s last man before he prodded the ball into the path of Brentford’s top scorer.
“VAR Lee Mason was looking to see if there was an offside and whether Ethan Pinnock had blocked off Gabriel in the build-up[of Ivan Toney;s goal].” Chris Foy, Mail on Sunday referee expert and PGMOL representative said.
“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 the lines…And that counts as human error.
“Had the lines gone down the goal would have been disallowed for offside.”
A similar situation played out during the first game between Chelsea and West Ham United as the Blues were denied a golden opportunity to take home a well-deserved three points