The Saturday evening Premier League game between Everton and Arsenal was a feisty affair at times.
That might well have been expected given that Mikel Arteta’s side are struggling near the bottom of the table.
Though the match wasn’t ‘dirty’ as such, one incident saw some behaviour that should’ve ended with a couple of red cards according to former referee and head of PGMOL, Keith Hackett.
Gunners midfielder, Dani Ceballos, went in on Yerry Mina with his studs up, prompting the Colombian centre-back to aim a swift elbow to the Spaniard’s ribs, causing him to fall, a little theatrically, to the floor.
“Both should’ve received red cards and it’s difficult to understand why VAR didn’t intervene,” Hackett told CaughtOffside.
“I notice that Match of the Day didn’t show it either.”
Luckily for both players neither was seriously injured, and Mina even shook hands with his opposite number directly afterwards, flashing him a customary smile.
It does bring VAR’s role in the game into sharper focus again, however. At this rate, the technology, or more accurately the people that interpret it, will be moribund by season’s end.
Nothing in it stop being a bell end.