Collymore praised VAR’s intervention as Spurs lost to the Magpies at the Tottenham Hotspur Arena.
Stan Collymore has claimed that Harry Kane was “looking for the foul” in Tottenham Hotspur’s Premier League defeat to Newcastle United at the weekend and praised VAR for denying the Spurs striker a penalty (The Mirror).
Kane appeared to have been brought to the ground by Newcastle defender Jamaal Lascelles – who had lost his footing and himself went to ground – in the final 10 minutes of the 1-0 loss on Sunday but, after referee Mike Dean waved play on, VAR upheld the decision.
The decision proved contentious – Kane himself was quoted by Sky Sports News as saying “it is hard to understand how it hasn’t been given” – and ultimately helped the Magpies come away from the Tottenham Hotspur Arena with all three points.
However, pundit and Premier League cult hero Collymore spoke of how seeing “two of the highest-profile players in our game” – Kane and David Silva of Manchester City – was “flabbergasting and brilliant”, suggesting the decisions are testament to the powers-that-be deciding to “push back” against players going to ground easily.
“Yes, Lascelles was trying to get to the ball, he ham-fistedly put an arm out and there was a bit of contact, but contact in itself doesn’t mean penalty,” Collymore wrote in his column in The Mirror. “Kane had slowed down looking for the foul, he leaned in looking for the contact and went down far too easily.
“I am convinced someone has gone, ‘Well, if the referee has referred it to us, we don’t have to call anyone a cheat, we don’t have to get into any litigious action by saying someone has cheated or dived, we can just not give a penalty’. And eventually, if they keep not giving penalties, it will nip diving in the bud.”
The loss to Newcastle left Spurs five points behind Premier League leaders Liverpool and three behind Manchester City.
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