Would Liverpool have got ‘soft’ penalty in Premier League?

Dale Johnson, soccer points correspondent:

When VAR was first used within the Premier League, a number of tender penalties had been awarded.

Liverpool followers will keep in mind the spot-kick they conceded at Brighton when Robertson tapped the underside of Danny Welbeck’s boot, and the striker went to floor theatrically. The VAR intervened and gave the penalty despite the fact that contact was slight.

This prompted a change in method, to what the Premier League deemed “contact with consequence”. It meant the VAR ought to take note of whether or not the contact, kick or pull was matched by the way in which a participant goes to floor.

It’s is why we began to listen to references to glancing contact in a sort out or, relating to a shirt pull, a fleeting maintain.

Holding the shirt is just not a foul in itself, it will need to have influence on an opponent. If there’s just a little tug, and the striker falls like he is been pulled proper down, he shouldn’t be rewarded with a penalty.

We noticed this earlier within the season when Newcastle striker Nick Woltemade threw his arms up when a Bournemouth defender held his shirt. It might have been a penalty, however the way in which the Germany worldwide went down counted in opposition to him, as a result of it looked like an unnatural fall in comparison with the extent of the shirt pull.

We have seen the same form of factor with handball, each for penalties and when a aim is scored, between the Premier League and in Europe.

Firstly of the season, I particularly requested Premier League referees’ chief Howard Webb about this.

He mentioned: “If I get requested about it, and I do converse to my counterparts on a regular basis, I’m fast to level out that we’re right here to use the Legal guidelines of the Sport. In fact, as we now have to do.

“However inside the legal guidelines, the sport is a component of interpretation, and with handball what’s deemed unjustifiable, or unnatural is a judgement. It is interpretation.

“We see handball penalised in different places considerably in a different way. I feel that is out of a drive for consistency, significantly for those who have a look at Uefa competitions, the place you’ve got received loads of completely different footballing cultures coming collectively.

“So officers from all around the continent, groups all around the continent. Penalising these conditions when the arm is away from the physique extra ceaselessly provides that consistency.

“I might by no means say we’re proper, they usually’re mistaken or vice versa. It is simply all about making an attempt to attempt to officiate the sport in a method that greatest serves the expectations of the sport the place you are working.

“By way of the talk round handball, right here it is decreasing considerably. That would solely be as a result of we’re doing it in a method that almost all of individuals appear to suppose is the way in which that they’d count on it to be achieved right here.

“I respect the way in which it is achieved elsewhere, in fact, however for us right here, it appears to work nicely.”