Spurs have enjoyed a solid start to the season, but the same can’t be said for some of the officials.
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Tottenham have enjoyed a solid start to the season with a healthy goal difference being supported by three wins and a solitary defeat.
That goal difference could have been one better though if Cristian Romero’s ‘opener’ against West Ham had been allowed to stand and VAR John Brooks had intervened to persuade Jarred Gillett that the foul that he saw by Micky van de Ven on Kyle Walker-Peters had actually been a foul on the Spurs centre-half instead.
James Maddison reacts to disallowed Spurs goal
It is the latest in a long line of mistakes already this season with the individual officials, rather than VAR, seemingly being where the problems lie.
Despite Howard Webb claiming that there will be a higher threshold for certain fouls, if anything, things have got worse with Spurs’ own James Maddison expressing his frustration from the treatment room, via BBC Sport: "Honestly the referees and VAR have had an absolute shocker of a start to the season. If that goal is disallowed for a foul you will never ever see a corner be taken without [the] referee blowing for something ever again."
The Professional Game Match Officials released a statement explaining why the goal had been given, which only made matters worse: "The referee's call of no goal was checked and confirmed by VAR – with it deemed that Van de Ven pushed Walker-Peters in the back and impacted his ability to play the ball.”
If a handball or foul in the build-up to a goal can see one being chalked off, it seems strange that the opposite can’t be true if a good goal has been disallowed. VAR was designed to help officials, but it doesn’t help when they refuse to accept when a mistake has been made.
What have the pundits said about the VAR blunder?
Speaking on Match of the Day, former Wales skipper Ashley Williams couldn’t believe how the officials got the decision wrong with the benefit of replays and video footage from various angles:
"West Ham's goalkeeper pushes his own player into Micky Van der Ven, who then collides with Kyle Walker-Peters but the Tottenham player didn't initiate that contact. We've watched it back numerous times and you can see he doesn't push Walker-Peters over." Williams said.
"The referee's given the decision on the field and because of that, VAR is reluctant to intervene but that's what they're there for. We'd like to see more goals given and it's the wrong decision, which is frustrating."
There might be a grey area for ‘clear and obvious’ in terms of when the VAR should intervene and when it should back the on-field official, however, in this instance, if referee Gillett was allowed to see the incident again via the monitor, he would probably have changed his mind. The man in the middle hasn’t actually done anything wrong, but he’s been badly let down by those who are employed to help him.