Chelsea dropped points against Everton on Sunday to hand Liverpool an even greater advantage in the Premier League title race.
Indeed, the Blues slipped up against Sean Dyche’s side, only managing to come away with a 0-0 draw at Goodison Park.
The Premier League’s top-scoring side drew a blank on Sunday, and that leaves them some way away from the top of the league.
Cole Palmer was off the pace vs Everton, and that led to Chelsea dropping points.
However, things could’ve been different if one controversial refereeing call went another way.
Indeed, Jordan Pickford took Malo Gusto out in the box, but no penalty was awarded as Pickford did get a touch on the ball, no penalty was given.
Speaking on The Weekend Wrap, Shaun Wright-Phillips has been reviewing this incident, and he says this should’ve been a penalty.
Head Coach Enzo Maresca of Chelsea during the UEFA Conference League 2024/25 League Phase MD5 press conference at the Cobham Training Ground on Dec...
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Shaun Wright-Phillips says VAR made a mistake during Everton vs Chelsea
Wright-Phillips shared his verdict on Pickford’s challenge on Gusto.
The pundit says othat this is a penalty, comparing this situation to Andre Onana’s controversial challenge against Wolves last season.
Onana’s challenge went unpunished, as did this challenge.
Pickford has a history of this type of challenge. Pickford injured Virgil van Dijk in the same way a few years ago.
“There, it’s quite wild isn’t it?” The host asked.
“For me, it’s a foul. For me it is a penalty for me. It’s almost like the conversation we had about Onana when he first came against Wolves, the player headered the ball and he took him out. He did it again the season after and they got the penalty, it’s ridiculous,” Wright-Phillips said.
What Howard Webb said about Andre Onana’s challenge
Wright-Phillips compares Pickford’s challenge to Onana’s punch vs Wolves last year, and that is an interesting comparison.
Both instances went unpunished due to the fact the opposition player got their shot off.
However, after the game, Howard Webb did admit that VAR made a mistake in this instance.
“I think from the outset I want to say that should have led to an intervention by VAR,” Webb said.
“We should have seen a video review being recommended and the referee should have gone to the screen. I’m confident he would have seen the images that we’ve seen and would have awarded a penalty.
“We hear the VAR in this circumstance going through the checking phase once the penalty has not been awarded and he is describing what he has seen – Onana coming out and contact with the Wolves player, Kalajdzic.
“[The VAR] starts to go down the road, I believe, towards recommending a video review, but then he overthinks it a little bit. Sometimes the VARs can do that. They’re trying to identify what the game would expect in terms of what is and isn’t a clear and obvious error.
“And when he sees these two players come together, he knows that sometimes that can happen and it’s not a foul. In this case quite interestingly neither Onana nor Kalajdzic plays the ball, so he sees in the end that as a coming together, a collision of two players, and decided not to intervene.
“But the difference in this one is that Onana jumps into the Wolves player. Kalajdzic is just jumping up and not into Onana. So it’s not two players coming together, it’s one going into the other.
“We didn’t recommend a review. We should have done. We acknowledge that as an error, which, of course, was disappointing. We took the learning from that, obviously, to try and ensure going forward that type of error doesn’t happen again.
“We think it’s important we acknowledge clear errors. When it’s clear like this one, we don’t want people to benchmark against this situation. This was clearly wrong – if this happens the following week, we expect a penalty to be given. So, I think it’s only right we acknowledge errors when they happen, acknowledge that wasn’t correct; and we expect to see something different next time.”
This isn’t the first time VAR have made a mistake in a Chelsea game this season.
VAR made an error during Liverpool vs Chelsea too as Curtis Jones’ handball was missed before Chelsea gave away a penalty.
VAR continues to be an incredibly controversial part of Premier League football.
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