It has been a rocky road under Steve Cooper so far, but Leicester City finally claimed a first league win of the campaign as they beat Bournemouth 1-0 last time out.
That win sees Leicester 15th in the Premier League after seven matches and Cooper can now look ahead to a huge next three league fixtures against Southampton, Nottingham Forest and Ipswich Town.
Things could have been better for Leicester as a week prior to beating Bournemouth the Foxes put in a resolute display away at Arsenal before eventually conceding two goals in second-half stoppage time to lose 4-2.
VAR right to overturn Arsenal goal against Leicester City
When Arsenal stormed into a 2-0 first-half lead against Leicester, everyone at The Emirates assumed the result was a foregone conclusion.
However, Leicester came out the blocks strong in the second 45 minutes and a James Justin brace saw Cooper’s side level the contest at 2-2.
Leicester defended for their lives as they looked to cling on to a point, with Mads Hermansen performing heroics in goal before their resilience was eventually broken by a 94th-minute Wilfred Ndidi own goal.
Kai Havertz then completed the scoring on 94 minutes as Justin’s clearance cannoned off him into the Leicester net.
The goal was initially given offside before being overturned by VAR and PGMOL chief Howard Webb has explained why this was the correct call on Sky Sports’ Mic’d Up show.
Michael Owen started the conversation by saying: “I presume there, the assistant referee thought it was the attacking player from Arsenal that probably kicked the ball.”
To which Webb responded: “Yeah, he did. It shows the benefit of having VAR doesn’t it, that we can rectify this clear and obvious error.
“The on-field officials feel that it has been played by an attacking player to Havertz, when you watch it back it’s not, it’s actually played by James Justin, the defender.
“Therefore, very quickly, very efficiently, we can step in and give the goal back. It’s a really good demonstration I suppose of the benefit of VAR, which doesn’t only take goals away but sometimes gives them back.”
Whilst it is clear to see Leicester were not hard done by with the VAR intervention at The Emirates, there is one decision in particular that left Cooper seething.
With Leicester 2-0 up and cruising away at Crystal Palace earlier in the campaign, Jean-Philippe Mateta scored just after half-time to halve the deficit.
However, replays showed the Palace striker looked offside before a lengthy VAR review eventually deemed Mateta to actually be onside.
Palace eventually levelled through a stoppage time penalty to take a point and Cooper has since explained he believes the VAR officials made a mistake as the images he saw show Mateta to clearly be in an offside position.
Cooper will hope to get the rub of the green in future decisions, but VAR controversy is never too far away in the Premier League.
0 Comments