Chelsea fans will be upset, but VAR and Stuart Atwell got it spot-on in Liverpool’s Carabao Cup final victory, says Mark Halsey

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VAR worked extremely well at Wembley — there were no complaints and all the decisions were correct.

Referee Stuart Attwell handled the game superbly and it was good to see him go to the pitchside monitor before ruling out Joel Matip’s goal.

Matip’s Liverpool team-mate Virgil van Dijk interfered with Reece James while in an offside position when he ball way played.

Chelsea had three goals disallowed for offside — they were tight decisions but still correct.

Looking at the Naby Keita challenge on Trevoh Chalobah – I think Stuart Attwell had a really good game – and had it been serious foul play then VAR would’ve got involved and there’d have been a review.

Had Stuart seen it I would imagine he would’ve issued a yellow card to Keita for a reckless challenge. VAR cannot get involved unless they think it’s a red card offence, so in that case they would’ve definitely recommended a review.

When you slow some of these challenges down they look much worse, it’s just one of those things that happens on the football pitch. Stuart missed it and VAR deemed it not to be an obvious error.

Fans will be upset, but these challenges often look worse slowed down, and they have to be judged in real time.

More Stories Joel Matip Mark Halsey Naby Keita Reece James Trevoh Chalobah Virgil van Dijk

1 Comment

  1. VAR is a joke. There is different rules for different teams. It’s time that VAR get more involved in certain situations. If that was Xhaka he would have been send off. Keita never got booked for it.

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