Jamie Carragher has explained why he feels VAR was wrong to give Manchester City a penalty against Chelsea in the latest controversial call from Stockley Park. Chelsea had made a promising start to their clash with the defending champions, holding their own and causing Pep Guardiola’s side some problems.
But the deadlock was broken in controversial circumstances with VAR at the centre of it all once again. Chelsea players felt there had been a foul on Reece James and Moises Caicedo originally but the referee waved play on before Bernardo Silva whipped in a wicked cross into the box for Haaland.
The City forward was in a wrestling match with Cucurella with both players seemingly tugging at one another in the box. VAR took several minutes going over the footage before appearing to concentrate solely on the footage of Cucurella pulling Haaland to the floor.
The decision was soon made to give City the penalty with Haaland scoring from the spot.
But Carragher couldn’t understand why VAR didn’t take into consideration that Haaland also had a hold of Cucurella before the striker fell to the floor.
“This isn’t right,” Carragher said on Sky Sports. “Haaland had hold of him as well. I think that’s what gets him in front of him.”
“No, no, no. This isn’t right. The VAR has looked the end of the tussle. He needs to look at the start. This is very harsh.”