Jermaine Beckford was left seething on during the live coverage of BBC’s Final Score programme after Patrick Bamford had a goal ruled out during Leeds United’s 4-1 defeat to Crystal Palace.
At the time, Palace were winning 1-0 when Scott Dann had put the home team ahead, but Leeds thought they had levelled the scores through Bamford.
But VAR judged that the Englishman’s arm, yes you can score with your arm apparently, was offside, so they chalked the goal off and Palace went down the other end to make it 2-0 through a quite wicked Eberechi Eze free-kick.
At that time of the disallowed goal, Beckford wasn’t happy with what he was seeing and he made it clear that it was ‘bang out of order’ to rule out the goal.
“Come off it,” said Beckford. “Honestly, the only part of his body that’s offside is his arm. And his arm is fully stretched to say where to put the ball. You cannot score with that part of your body.
“How is that offside? That is absolute nonsense. That’s ridiculous – It shouldn’t have been the case [when Eze made it 2-0]. It shouldn’t have been allowed to happen that way, especially with the goal being ruled out.
“Bang out of order! Terrible. Not offside. Not offside! You cannot score with that part of your arm. If you try to score with that part of your arm that they claim is offside then it’s a free-kick. A handball. How it’s not allowed to stand I have no idea!”
VAR and those making the decisions has reared its ugly head once again and it’s something newly-promoted Leeds will have to get used to.
Whilst it’s not the problem of VAR itself, it is a major problem for those putting the rules on the table and then implementing them on the field of play, or trying to implement them.
Either way, Leeds will feel that it would have been a different game at 1-1 rather them having to work their magic at 2-0.
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