Thanks to his blunder while on VAR duty during Chelsea’s 2-0 win over Fulham on Saturday afternoon, Michael Salisbury has been replaced by John Brooks for this weekend’s blockbuster clash between Arne Slot’s Liverpool and Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal.
Teenage Fulham star Josh King saw his name written in lights thought he had opened the scoring at Stamford Bridge on the 22-minute mark, though Marco Silva and Co were left fuming on the sidelines as VAR intervened to chalk off what was a perfectly legal goal.
king muniz
As King and his teammates were celebrating what they believed was the opener, on-field referee Robert Jones was swiftly sent to the monitor to double-check the goal was perfectly legal after Michael Salisbury spotted something in the build-up to the well-worked goal.
Michael Salisbury Punished For VAR Blunder During Chelsea v Fulham
michael salisbury ref var
Striker Rodrigo Muniz, as a means of winning the ball, got away from Chelsea's Trevoh Chalobah with a neat pirouette. The Brazilian stood on the defender's foot in the process. Jones, after reviewing the footage on the sidelines, announced his decision to the Stamford Bridge crowd that he would be overturning the goal.
He explained: “After review, Fulham No.9 commits a careless challenge, stands on the foot of the Chelsea defender, therefore we disallow the goal and we restart with a Chelsea free kick. There would be no further action."
Taking to X (formerly Twitter), talkSPORT’s Alex Crook broke the news that Salisbury had been stripped of his VAR duties after PGMOL acknowledged that he had made a grave error by disallowing King's goal, which would have been the 18-year-old's first in senior Fulham colours.
“BREAKING: Michael Salisbury replaced by John Brooks as VAR at LFC v AFC today. Change is as a result of Salisbury intervening while on VAR duty at CFC yesterday resulting in Fulham goal being wrongly disallowed.”
GIVEMESPORT senior football correspondent Ben Jacobs added that PGMOL chief Howard Webb has been in direct contact with Fulham. He wrote: "Salisbury's intervention was not in line with PGMOL's high bar for VAR intervention. Also understand that Howard Webb contacted Fulham directly yesterday."
As alluded to, Fulham boss Silva was not pleased with VAR's wrongful intervention. “Unbelievable the goal was disallowed. After the second corner it was already nine minutes of extra-time. The game didn’t stop during the eight minutes, so the game should be stopped after the first corner.”
With Salisbury – who made a grand total of six errors while officiating in the Premier League last season – now punished, Chris Kavanagh remains the on-field referee for Sunday's heavyweight clash meeting between Liverpool and Arsenal, with John Brooks manning VAR.