Former Manchester City defender Micah Richards believes the integrity of the competition prevented Leeds United from facing Arsenal without VAR on Sunday. The game had to be stopped for around 40 minutes just 70 seconds after kicking off due to a powercut at Elland Road.
Referee Chris Kavanagh spoke to both managers about the possibility of playing without it, but in the end decided to suspend the game until the issue was eventually fixed. Arguably, that turned out to be the correct choice after an incident-packed second half in which VAR was consulted on three key decisions.
Speaking on BBC 5Live, Richards was debating with fellow pundit Chris Sutton on why the game could not have just been played without technology. “As far as I’m concerned, if both managers agree they want to just crack on and play, just get on with and accept what’s going to happen,” Sutton said.
