Anjishnu Roy 22/02/2025 3comments  |  Jump to last

Controversy struck again as Everton were denied a clear penalty late in the 2-2 draw against Manchester United at home. Ashley Young, who came on as a substitute, was pulled down in the box by Matthijs de Ligt and Harry Maguire.

A shot from Idrissa Gana Gueye from outside the box got spilled by Andre Onana and Young, who had gained a yard on the United defence, threatened to get on to the rebound before being fouled inside the box.

Referee Andrew Madley noticed the foul and pointed to the spot but had to change his mind after VAR intervened. Bizarrely, VAR failed to provide the referee with the correct angle from behind the goal that clearly showed Young’s shirt being repeatedly pulled by De Ligt before Maguire wrapped his left arm around him.

VAR also instructed the referee to focus instead on Maguire’s gentler shirt pull towards the latter stages of the action and the pitchside angle made it seem like Young had made the most of the contact.

Taking to social media to explain the referee's decision, the Premier League Match Centre account posted on X: "VAR checked the referee’s call of penalty to Everton for a challenge by Maguire on Young and deemed that no foul had been committed and recommended an on-field review. The referee overturned the original decision and play restarted with an indirect free-kick."

Michael Owen, Ian Wright, and Tim Howard seemed perplexed by the decision in the post-match analysis, pointing to the fact that the referee should’ve been given access to more angles in order to assess the situation.

”I’m a VAR fan but that last minute penalty was a mess. Maguire wasn’t the culprit yet VAR repeatedly offered the ref one angle and failed to show the shirt pull from De Ligt,” Owen posted on X after the match.

It was a disappointing afternoon for Evertonians at Goodison Park. Despite going 2-0 up thanks to goals from Beto and Abdoulaye Doucoure, the Toffees became slow and complacent in the second half, allowing United to draw level at 2-2.

Instead of capitalising on their advantage, the hosts dropped deeper and Moyes was also late to make changes from the bench, allowing United to gain control of the match.

 

Reader Comments (3)

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Si Cooper
1 Posted 22/02/2025 at 17:53:41
Generally a good report Anjishnu, but I think the ref’s skewed decisions throughout the game played its part in snuffing out our drive.
We ended up with key players having to be ultra careful due to getting extremely soft yellow cards for being fractionally late once only; they’d have needed to be slugging our players with baseball bats for the ref to have taken notice of their agricultural behaviour.
Therefore we lost our momentum and so they got a boost when they scored. We still had enough opportunities to win it but what should have been the easiest was taken from us unfairly as well. I think people have to recognise the players were negatively affected just by being subject to one sided decision making.
Robert Williams
2 Posted 22/02/2025 at 20:00:00
Anjishnu - you say 'The referee HAD to change his mind'!!
He did not Have to - he elected to.
He made an on-field decision and should have stuck to it.
He capitulated in the face of being shown incomplete evidence of the foul by the so called VAR experts!!
Jeff Spoering
3 Posted 22/02/2025 at 20:17:24
Shameful performance by Madley for certain. One of the most biased ref jobs against this season.

That being said, Moyes should have swapped in Alcaraz for Doucoure around at about 60 minutes, when it was obvious we were losing control of the midfield battles. More calmness and composure on the ball would have suited us well and perhaps avoided Doucoure's fouls which led to the goals against.

A small consolation that we are still above them in the table this week!

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