{"id":95396,"date":"2025-09-30T20:07:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T20:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/95396\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T20:07:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T20:07:08","slug":"howard-webb-confirms-clear-error-as-gyokeres-penalty-decision-vs-newcastle-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/95396\/","title":{"rendered":"Howard Webb confirms ‘clear error’ as Gyokeres penalty decision vs Newcastle explained"},"content":{"rendered":"

Howard Webb says VAR was correct to overturn Arsenal\u2019s penalty in their Premier League match against Newcastle United on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Arsenal<\/strong><\/a> were awarded a penalty by referee Jarred Gillett when Viktor Gyokeres went down under a challenge from Magpies goalkeeper Nick Pope.<\/p>\n

However, Gillett was sent to the pitchside monitor by the VAR and, after reviewing the incident, overturned his original decision, deeming that Pope played the ball before making contact with Gyokeres.<\/p>\n

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta was convinced it should\u2019ve been a penalty and would\u2019ve been thankful that\u00a0his side went on to win 2-1<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a few things we can speak about, for example the penalty,\u201d Arteta said. \u201cFor me if we have VAR it is for a clear and obvious error and the fact that it took the ref that long to decide shows it is not a clear and obvious error.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it\u2019s not a clear and obvious error, VAR should not intervene. We\u2019ve been told this for a few years, this style of decision again, and for me, it\u2019s very clear that it doesn\u2019t have to intervene because it\u2019s a penalty.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0Two key reasons Arsenal are now worthy Premier League favourites<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Unfortunately for Arteta, Premier League\u00a0referees\u2019 chief Webb\u00a0backed the decision to overturn\u00a0the penalty and\u00a0called it a \u201cclear error\u201d by the referee.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe VAR checks the penalty,\u201d Webb said on the Premier League\u2019s\u00a0Match Officials Mic\u2019d Up\u00a0show.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he does that, he clearly sees that Gyokeres gets to the ball, pokes it a little bit forward but then, importantly, Nick Pope also gets a very clear touch on the ball as he steps forward with that right foot and deviates the direction that the ball is going in. That hadn\u2019t been appreciated on the field by the referee.<\/p>\n

\u201cPope then plants his foot on the ground, he doesn\u2019t drive it forward into Gyokeres. There\u2019s clearly a gap between the two players after Pope has played the ball and then the two players come together quite normally.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe action by Pope is normal, it\u2019s not reckless, it\u2019s just a kick out towards the ball, the ball deviates, no contact on the player until the ball has been played away and then the contact happens fairly normally so not a foul and therefore a good use of the VAR to intervene to show the referee what really happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the deviation is quite clear. You\u2019ll see that touch by Gyokeres, then you\u2019ll see Pope\u2019s right leg come in.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt touches the ball, it moves the ball away in a different direction to the direction it was previously going in. When he then puts his foot on the ground having made contact with the ball, there\u2019s a separation between him and Gyokeres. There\u2019s no contact at that point. The contact only happens after Pope has played the ball.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, it\u2019s a good challenge by Pope, it\u2019s not a foul and there was an important part around this in that the referee didn\u2019t recognise that touch by Pope in real time, hence the reason that when the VAR saw it, he deemed it to be a clear and obvious error, because that touch by Pope hadn\u2019t been seen and therefore the referee could go to the screen to look at that really important aspect and make a judgement for himself and that judgement was, yes, I\u2019ve seen the touch and therefore it\u2019s not a foul and I\u2019m going to start with a dropped ball.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe work with referee\u2019s call, it\u2019s an important principle in the Premier League where the call will be made on the field by the referee. It\u2019ll only get overturned if, when the VAR looks at the footage, he sees no reason at all to support the decision, there\u2019s no mix of considerations and it\u2019s a clear error.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this one, when you see Pope reach out with that foot, play the ball cleanly without making any contact with the opponent, in fact he doesn\u2019t really make contact with the opponent, they come together as a normal consequence of that clean challenge by Pope.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe referee hadn\u2019t recognised that touch, it was important that the VAR saw it and deemed it was a clear error and I agree with the VAR\u2019s intervention.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, the referee can go to the screen, look at the full sequence, see that touch and see that there was a normal playing action by Pope and the penalty was rightly cancelled.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0Arsenal have anti-Everton problem as 17th-best Declan Rice highlights key issue for Mikel Arteta<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Howard Webb says VAR was correct to overturn Arsenal\u2019s penalty in their Premier League match against Newcastle United…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95397,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[2725,18,793,794,19,17,1270,5,795,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-95396","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-arsenal","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-front-page","11":"tag-home-page","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-newcastle-united","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-premier-league","17":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}