Sunderland felt they should have been awarded a penalty in their clash with Man City with the score 3-2 at the time.
(Image: Sky Sports)
Sunderland have been told the officials made the correct decision not to award the Black Cats a penalty despite Elliot Anderson appearing to handle the ball inside the penalty area. The Man City midfielder appeared to swat the ball away with his right hand as both he and Enzo Le Fee battled for possession inside the area.
Referee Rob Jones did not award a penalty, and VAR Michael Salisbury agreed it was not worthy of a spot kick. To add insult to injury, Man City went up the other end and increased their lead to make it 4-2 with Antoine Semenyo scoring before the hour mark.
However, former Premier League referee Dermott Gallagher and striker Jay Bothroyd felt the referees got the right decision, claiming it would have been 'harsh' to award a penalty, stating the ball hit his left arm, before then hitting his right.
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Speaking on Sky Sports Ref Watch, Gallagher said: "I did not think it was a penalty yesterday and I still think it was not a penalty.
"There are a lot of interesting things about this - the first handball was by a Sunderland player and as it runs on, it strikes Anderson on the left arm, ricochets on to his right hand and up his arm.
"So he has no chance, he turns into the ball and it strikes him, there is no doubt about that, but I still think if that is given as a penalty, it will be over turned because they will say it is not a deliberate handball, it is just a consequence."
Bothroyd added: "One thing I would say, Dermot, I have seen those kinds of decisions given in the past, but I do think if you give that, it's harsh.
"As Dermot said there, it's come off the player's arms. You're there in a position where you're not even a yard away, you're so close to each other.
"It's not like he's intentionally tried to do that. To be honest ,what I'm thinking there is, not from this angle, not even from this angle, the next angle you see it looks like he's just trying to kind of brush him away from the ball, like hold the defender off.
"This one here, he puts his arm down, he sees when the ball's going he kind of pushes his arm away but he clips the ball as he's doing it.
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"I think that would be extremely harsh to give a penalty there just because of the proximity, it's bouncing everywhere, it's definitely not intentional.
"If someone is saying to me they believe that he's intentionally trying to hit the ball down there, they don't know football."
Man City would run out 5-3 winners over the Black Cats, but Brian Brobbey would steal the show, scoring an impressive hattrick for Sunderland.