“It was a penalty” – Sky pundits back Chelsea over outrageous Arsenal set piece action | OneFootball

VAR let Arsenal get away with some preposterous holding yesterday, and on Sky Sports today they agreed Chelsea were hard done by.

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Sky Sports’ Ref Watch is having its usual Monday morning look at the weekend’s action, and to be honest they could have done a whole episode on the Chelsea – Arsenal game from yesterday alone.

One really egregious incident came when Declan Rice handballed a Chelsea corner, using an arm that was around the throat of Jorrel Hato.

Former PL ref Dermot Gallagher had his say:

“I thought it was a penalty,” Gallagher said in quotes picked up by the Evening Standard.

“I think he moves his arm to the ball and his arm shouldn’t be up that high.

“I get told it’s because he’s engaging with an opponent, but in my opinion you shouldn’t be engaged with an opponent that high up, he shouldn’t have his arms around his shoulder.”

Refs ridiculous corner logic brought to light in multiple incidents

Chelsea score from a corner. (Photo by Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC)

That’s what’s so ridiculous about this particular decision. He’s let off the handball because he’s “engaged” with Hato. But that “engaging” is clearly illegal, with Rice simply wrapping his arms around the Chelsea player.

Thankfully we scored from the subsequent corner to make all the chat a little moot – but this was far from the only incident in the game.

In other news…

It’s supercomputer season, and the latest update on the remaining fixtures isn’t pretty for Chelsea after 3 games without a win.

Liam Rosenior decided not to use the “leaving men up” set piece tactic yesterday, claiming that Arsenal would have prepared for it.

Check out the latest edition of Simon Phillips’ SPTC podcast here: