\n<\/p>\n
Jarrod Bowen stood over the ball by the corner flag. There was so much going on in the penalty area as he delivered a cross. <\/p>\n
A melee ensued before Callum Wilson blasted a shot over the line. Salvation for the Hammers? Enter the video assistant referee, Darren England.<\/p>\n
You cannot blame the VAR for taking his time. This was such a huge moment with five potential fouls buried among the bodies. <\/p>\n
Whatever decision England made was going to be the subject of intense scrutiny. <\/p>\n
Let’s break it down step-by-step, consider the potential fouls and what the VAR would be looking for. <\/p>\n
Soucek on Havertz<\/b><\/p>\n
In the chronology of fouls, this was the first potential incident. <\/p>\n
The two players were at the near post, with Kai Havertz in front facing the ball. Tomas Soucek was climbing over the back of the Germany international. <\/p>\n
As the ball was in the air, the Arsenal forward ended up on the floor with Soucek on top of him.<\/p>\n
The VAR will take into account that the players were not in the area where the ball was going to land – Havertz was not going to be prevented from playing it.<\/p>\n
That Soucek was facing the ball goes in his favour, too.<\/p>\n
All in all, the VAR would have allowed this to go.<\/p>\n
Odegaard on Tobido<\/b><\/p>\n
A straight-forward situation to judge. <\/p>\n
Both Martin Odegaard and Jean-Clair Todibo were engaged in mutual holding. When this is the case no one party is judged to be committing an offence – essentially, they are both as bad as each other. <\/p>\n
Odegaard had an arm round the waist of the West Ham attacker, who had his arm around the Norway international’s shoulder. <\/p>\n
Trossard on Pablo <\/b><\/p>\n
The battle between Leandro Trossard and Pablo started just outside the six-yard box as the ball was kicked.<\/p>\n
They were both holding on to each other at first before Pablo tried to make a run towards goal. <\/p>\n
This was when Trossard, with his back to the play, grabbed Pablo around the waist. <\/p>\n
Based on what we have seen this season, it was not enough for a penalty as Pablo was able to move to the flight of the ball and was not dragged down. <\/p>\n
However, this was the incident which may have been of most interest to the VAR outside the foul on Raya. <\/p>\n
Pablo on Raya<\/b><\/p>\n
After moving into the six-yard area under pressure from Trossard, Pablo engaged with David Raya.<\/p>\n
Crucially, he did so in a way which impeded the goalkeeper from being able to claim or play the ball.<\/p>\n
Pablo had his arm directly across the Spain international, and was holding the goalkeeper’s left arm with his hand. <\/p>\n
This restricted Raya in two ways. His right arm was pinned down by Pablo’s left biceps, and his left forearm was being held too. <\/p>\n
For the VAR, this clearly impacted the goalkeeper’s ability to play the ball. <\/p>\n
Tobido was pulling the back of Raya’s shirt, too, but it was Pablo committing the crucial foul.<\/p>\n
Rice on Mavropanos<\/b><\/p>\n
Declan Rice had his arms around the waist of West Ham’s Konstantinos Mavropanos.<\/p>\n
There was the potential for this to be a penalty, as it was a clear non-footballing action.<\/p>\n
However, it happened almost simultaneously with Pablo’s challenge on Raya. <\/p>\n
The foul which had the material impact on the passage of play was prioritised. <\/p>\n
And that was Raya’s attempt to play the ball. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jarrod Bowen stood over the ball by the corner flag.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}