Former Premier League referee Keith Hackett has slammed Chris Kavanagh’s decision to award Brentford a second penalty against Newcastle.
The Magpies left the Gtech Community Stadium with all three points, but it was by no means a comfortable victory after Kavanagh and VAR awarded the home side two penalties and denied Newcastle a third goal after Callum Wilson was punished for a handball.
While few can argue against the first penalty – a rash challenge by Sven Botman – former boss of PGMOL Hackett described the decision to award a second as ‘shocking’. Alexander Isak was adjudged to have fouled Rico Henry and, with the help of VAR, a second penalty was awarded.
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“The penalty kick awarded against Newcastle United by Ref Kavanagh in their match versus Brentford was shocking. How can two elite referees deliver such a poor decision.”
The 78-year-old was also keen to add that both referees should be taken off duty for at least the next round of fixtures so that they can learn from these possible mistakes.
“Howard Webb should bench them for a couple of weeks so they receive some operational advice. Not good enough," he added.
With the angles that were shown on the monitor, it appeared to be unclear whether the Swede actually made contact with the left-back. However, Darren England, who was on VAR, evidently felt Kavanagh had made a clear and obvious error by not immediately given a penalty.
Ivan Toney made sure to punish Newcastle on the second time of asking after his first spot-kick was saved by Nick Pope – his first penalty miss in the Premier League.
Nevertheless, an own goal from David Raya and a stunner from Isak proved to be enough to overturn the result in the second half, but had Newcastle dropped points on Saturday, more questions would have been asked about the capability of VAR and the standard of the Premier League’s referees.
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