Manchester City's crunch Premier League trip to Arsenal on Wednesday will have a new VAR official following a controversial top-flight weekend.
John Brooks has been replaced by David Coote for the top-of-the-table clash after wrongly disallowing a Brighton goal against Crystal Palace on Saturday. Brooks was also due to be the VAR for Monday night's Merseyside derby between Liverpool and Everton but Andre Marriner will now take over.
Brooks ruled out a goal by Pervis Estupinan after drawing the offside lines against the wrong Palace player, one of two major offside errors by VARs during Saturday’s action. The other involved dedicated VAR Lee Mason, who failed to check an offside in the build-up to Ivan Toney’s equaliser for Brentford at Arsenal.
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The Professional Game Match Officials (PGMOL) has confirmed Brooks has been replaced for his next two games while chief refereeing officer Howard Webb has called a referees' meeting for Tuesday, when appointments for the next round of Premier League matches are due to be confirmed,
PGMOL has not commented on whether Mason will be involved. He was not selected earlier this season in the round following another high-profile error he made, when he disallowed a goal for Newcastle in their home match against Crystal Palace on September 3.
Webb’s impact since his return to the English game at the end of last year after a stint managing referees in the United States has largely been well-received. He presented to clubs at Friday’s Premier League shareholders’ meeting and has raised the bar for VAR intervention on subjective decisions so that only clear and obvious errors are now being reviewed.
Webb sees the purpose of Tuesday’s meeting as being to identify the issues from the weekend, reflect on them, review them and move forward. He is keen to ensure officials have the correct support and coaching, and VARs already have dedicated assistance from former rugby league referee Phil Bentham.
Keith Hackett, a former referee and former PGMOL general manager, has called for Mason to be sacked.
He described Mason as a “serial offender” in his column for the Daily Telegraph and added: “Lee would be towards the bottom in the list of best performers. He has seemingly passed the point of requiring operational assistance – he does not have a place any more.”
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