Piers Morgan claimed that the Premier League has “reached peak VAR hell” following the head-scratching scenes between Arsenal and Leeds United at Elland Road.
The clash in Yorkshire was halted just seconds after kick-off after a power surge caused referee Chris Kavanagh to lose all communication with his fellow officials, VAR and goal-line technology.
As staff at Elland Road attempted to rectify the issue, the referee held conversations with both Mikel Arteta and Jesse Marsch before signalling that the players head back to the dressing room.
Following a 40-minute delay with supporters left none the wiser as to what was going on, the sides re-emerged and got play back underway. However, the decision to halt the game in the first place seems to have not gone down particularly well with some keen observers.
Infamous Arsenal fan Morgan took to Twitter to vent his frustration at the decision. He wrote: “FFS. The Leeds/Arsenal game is currently suspended because the referee has lost tech comms contact with an automated system that always gets it wrong anyway. We’ve reached peak VAR hell.
Former Sky Sports presenter Richard Keys was also not a fan of the decision to temporarily halt play. Taking to Twitter during the incident, he wrote: "Are we so dependent on technology now that Leeds/Arsenal can’t be played? They’ve gone off because the ref has no contact with match centre. 40,000 are sat waiting for something to happen. This isn’t right. Just get on with it."
An announcement came over the Elland Road PA system that the game was set to restart at 2:40pm with players going through another short warm-up before getting back into the action. Indeed, the delay did not appear to knock either side off of their strides with each putting in impressive displays.
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Arsenal felt majorly aggrieved that they were not given the opportunity to take the lead as Gabriel Martinelli looked to be one-on-one with Leeds stopper Illan Meslier only for referee Kavanagh to pull the game back for a foul earlier in the move.
The Gunners did eventually take the lead in the 35th minute of the clash following a howler from Leeds forward Rodrigo. Martin Odegaard cut out the Spaniard’s pass and played through Bukayo Saka who slotted home for the opening goal of the game.
Following their trip to Elland Road, Arteta’s side are back in European action as they take on Dutch side PSV Eindhoven in their rearranged Europa League tie.
