Aston Villa picked up a point on the road against West Ham United on Sunday afternoon in a fixture that was dominated by controversial decisions.
Like many fixtures in the Premier League this season, it was VAR that took centre stage during Aston Villa’s draw against West Ham.
There were three controversial points during the fixture that involved the officials on the day, two of which were goals scored by the hosts that were ruled out for handball.
In what was a clash between two sides slightly jaded from their respective European involvement on Thursday, the 1-1 scoreline will arguably suit Villa more than the Hammers, who had the ball in the net three times.
While there has been and will continue to be, a host of debates surrounding the decisions of VAR during the contest, former Premier League referee Mark Clattenburg has insisted that both goal-cancelling decisions were ‘correct’.
What Mark Clattenburg said about the VAR intervention in Aston Villa v West Ham
Writing in a column for the Daily Mail, Clattenburg shared his verdict on the controversy surrounding VAR at the London Stadium on Sunday.
“Both VAR decisions at West Ham were correct because the ball touched the arm before going in the goal.”
“The first decision — for Michail Antonio’s handball — was really difficult without a conclusive angle. The second one at the end, involving Tomas Soucek, should have been easier for the VAR to quickly rule out.”
“Was it handball? Different angles suggested different things. The VAR was trying to find the best angle to give the right decision and that’s why there was such a delay.”
There was a delay of five minutes to conclude that the ball had hit a hand during Soucek’s goal, leaving fans and players frustrated as the match-deciding decision took agonisingly long to determine.
Aston Villa will be relieved to have escaped with a point
For all of the stress that VAR caused on the day, it was Villa who walked away from the London Stadium happy with a point due to the stressful delay at the end of the game.
That being said, Unai Emery’s side won’t be entirely happy with the VAR team after the Villans were also on the receiving end of an arguable decision in the first half.
When the score was at 0-0, Emerson was seen to clearly handle the ball after Leon Bailey floated a cross into the box, with VAR determining that it was a matter of ball-to-hand due to the proximity of the defender to play.
With the score at 0-0, if Villa had scored the awarded penalty, would the visitors have been given more of a motive to win the fixture?
There are plenty of debates to be had surrounding the various calls made by the officials in that game and every week in the Premier League, Villa will just be relieved to have had the decision sway in their favour on this occasion.
