Gary Lineker claimed that it’s ‘quite rare’ that the Match of the Day pundits are sticking up for VAR because he feels they made the ‘right’ calls during Arsenal’s 2-1 defeat to Manchester City on Saturday.
The former striker thinks there isn’t ‘any doubt’ that Granit Xhaka fouled Bernardo Silva for Man City’s equalising penalty, whilst he doesn’t think the earlier call, involving Martin Odegaard and Ederson, was ‘clear or obvious’ for the spot-kick to be awarded, as he told Match of the Day.
Arsenal fans would have left the Emirates yesterday full of mixed emotions at how their team performed and the calls that went against them.
On one hand, they withstood the might of the Premier League champions, who were on a ten-game winning run and they probably deserved to win the match based on their performance.
But, on the other, they will feel annoyed and frustrated at the on-field and VAR calls that were made during the 90+ minutes.
But Lineker doesn’t think there was an issue and the right calls were made on both fronts, involving both Xhaka’s foul on Silva and the challenge on Odegaard.
Odegaard shout: “It has to be clear and obvious, I think, to overrule something like that,” said Lineker.
“That (angle from behind the goal) looks like he (Ederson) got the ball.
“Then we go onto the Manchester City penalty, is there any doubt about that apart from the fact that he goes down like players do?
“They are moaning about the inconsistencies, he hasn’t been sent to the monitor for that one (Odegaard/Ederson) because it’s not clear and obvious.
“It’s quite rare that we stick up for VAR. I think they might have got it right on this occasion.”
After all of that drama, what rubbed the salt into Arsenal’s wounds was Gabriel being sent off and then Rodri scoring a stoppage-time winner.
The Manchester City midfielder then proceeded to pay homage to Emmanuel Adebayor by celebrating right in front of the Arsenal fans.
Those in the stands didn’t take too kindly to Rodri’s actions after scoring, as Mikel Arteta will now have to pick up his players when he is allowed to return to the training field.
Many would have paid a lot of money to watch a live feed of the Arsenal manager’s reaction to the drama unfolding yesterday because there’s no way that nothing was broken inside the Arteta household.
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