The biggest moment in Chelsea’s 0-0 draw against Crystal Palace was Eberechi Eze’s disallowed free-kick goal.
Eze blasted the ball past Robert Sanchez to put the Eagles 1-0 up at Stamford Bridge in the first half.
However, the Video Assistant Referee encouraged referee Darren England to check the monitor for a foul by Marc Guehi.
Most assumed that England was looking at Guehi’s push on Moises Caicedo, but in fact, he was penalised for being less than a metre from the Chelsea wall.
Even though it seemed that nobody knew about this rule, the referee was correct to chalk off Eze’s goal after consulting with VAR.
Still, former England international striker Gary Lineker was outraged by the decision and sounded off on Premier League referees in a passionate rant.
Chelsea v Crystal Palace - Premier League
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Gary Lineker rants about referees after Crystal Palace’s disallowed goal vs Chelsea
Lineker was bitterly disappointed that a free-kick goal of such quality was disallowed due to a minor infringement.
He thinks that Premier League referees and VAR are now doing far too much to disrupt the game rather than keeping it as simple as possible.
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“There was a goal. It was disallowed. VAR kicked in for Eze’s free-kick that was disallowed because Marc Guehi was within a metre of the wall,” Lineker explained.
“This was a law that was brought in in 2019. I do not understand why. Let me call this the referee-cation of football. It seems like referees are taking over the game.
“Obviously, they’re important. They play a really important role on the pitch. But now, they play an important role off the pitch, in terms of VAR, which is way more than we were promised at the start.
“Also, they define the laws, and that never used to be the case. But in recent years, that’s what’s happened. There is a law for everything.
“And even in co-commentary now, every time there is a foul, we hear a referee chirp up to tell us that someone has just pushed someone, which we’ve just seen for ourselves. It’s driving me crazy.”
The board confirms the VAR decision to rule out Eberechi Eze's goal against Chelsea
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Micah Richards defends decision to disallow Eberechi Eze’s free-kick vs Chelsea
Micah Richards responded to Lineker by pointing out that the match officials, led by referee Darren England, should not be criticised.
England was simply doing his job and, if anything, deserved “credit” for making a difficult decision “by the letter of the law.”
“Do we need to give the officials a little bit of credit? I don’t like it. We all hate it and it’s ridiculous, but their job is to abide by the letter of the law, which they did, even though we hated it and it’s ridiculous,” Richards said.
Richards makes a fair point. We should be frustrated about the introduction of new rules rather than the officials’ application of them.
Chelsea fans certainly won’t be complaining, though, as the controversial decision earned them a valuable point at Stamford Bridge.