Former Premier League referee, Dermot Gallagher says Anthony Gordon’s goal against Arsenal shouldn’t have stood on grounds of a foul.
The goal, that handed Arsenal their first league defeat of the season has been the talk of every football fan globally due to the manner in which it arrived.
Off a Jacob Murphy’s right-hand cross, former Arsenal midfielder Joe Willock sent in a cross of his own from the opposite end, but the ball appeared to have gone out of play.
From that Willock cross, Gordon scored the winning goal as Newcastle beat Arsenal 1-0 on Saturday at the St. James Park.
Before it was confirmed, VAR spent more than four minutes checking the legitimacy of the goal. Three things were checked! There was a check on the ball going out of play, a possibility of the goal scorer being offside and the possibility of Joelinton fouling defending Gabriel Magalhaes.
While Gallagher insists the former two incidents were not conclusive, he says there was a push on Gabriel therefore the goal should’ve been scrapped.
“That’s the crux of the matter – it’s a subjective decision. For me, I think it’s a push,” Gallagher said while speaking to Sky Sports.
“I’ve spoken to many who think it’s not, I’ve spoken to many who think it is – the subjective decision is the dilemma.
“The referee said no, the VAR looked at it and thought it wasn’t enough to overrule the referee, so that’s where we’re at.
“People say to me, if you’d have picked number two, the push, the other two would have gone away. That’s great, but the referee didn’t pick the push; he chose to say it was physical contact rather than a foul and the VAR backed him.”
That outcome saw Arsenal boss, Mikel Arteta term the decision as ’embarrassing and a disgrace’. Arteta said this during his post match press conference.
Arsenal backed their manager as they release a statement of support to the Spaniard while calling out VAR to fix their house.
