Arsenal have been on the opposite end of a number of contentious refereeing decisions with one arriving in the 1-0 victory over Leicester in February. Leandro Trossard thought he had given the Gunners the lead with a fine finish from the edge of the box, but the goal was disallowed because of a foul in the build-up.
To most it wasn't exactly clear where the infringement was but it was later revealed to be involving Ben White and Danny Ward. When the Leicester goalkeeper attempted to punch the ball clear, one of his arms was kept down by White.
Because of the impact White's holding of the arm had on Ward's clearance, the goal was disallowed. Gabriel Martinelli went on to score the winner for the visitors, but the actual conversations that took place between the officials has now been revealed in never before heard audio relayed on Sky Sports.
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"So our first point of concern, is their a foul on the goalkeeper," VAR Michael Salisbury said when reviewing the goal. "Is Ben White holding the arm of the keeper? Can you give me a front on view of that? I've got a suspicion that Ben White is holding that arm. He links and pulls it into his body with his left arm."
The camera angle then changed to one from the goal itself which showed the contact clearly. "Can you see he is holding his hand there? That is a perfect image," he said. "So Ben White's right arm is holding on to Danny Ward's glove and that impact his ability to claim the ball cleanly. I'm going to recommend an on-field review for a foul on the goalkeeper before the goal is scored."
With on-field official Craig Pawson now at the VAR screen, he said: "So what I'm showing you now is an image from behind you, so in the goal. You can see Ben White's right hand is holding the glove of Danny Ward. So that's the still image and he keeps hold of it as Danny Ward tries to punch the ball away. So he keeps hold of the glove, as you can see, sustained holding by the right hand."
After hearing the communication of his team, PGMOL chief Howard Webb then offered his verdict on the incident to Sky Sports. "When we see the angle that Craig [Pawson] could never get, there is no doubt it is a clear foul by Ben White - clear holding, sustained holding, on Danny Ward, the goalkeeper.
"One of the things we have to evaluate as officials on the field, but also as VAR’s, is the impact of that contact. Fleeting contact, we don’t want to get too busy penalising lots of small bits of contact, it happens all over the field and particularly in crowded penalty areas.
"But, when something is sustained the judgement clearly there is that there is an impact and I would agree with that, it’s reasonable to consider that the goalkeeper’s hand being held for that amount of time - needing his hands to punch or collect the ball - is going to have an impact on him.
"Once you see that definitive angle from behind the goal then absolutely the VAR is right to get involved, otherwise a goal would have been allowed to stand that had been unfairly awarded, even though it wasn’t clear for the officials."
To watch Howard Webb's VAR explainer, click here.
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