(Video): Chelsea denied handball penalty after Enzo Fernandez shot | OneFootball

It’s a must win game for Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, and the Blues have had a huge shout for a penalty.

Enzo Maresca’s team have not been good in this first half, and their best chance was a penalty should not given. Enzo Fernandez’ shot hit Rasmus Hojlund’s arm in the box, and there was a colossal appeal around Stamford Bridge.

Chelsea frustrated by VAR no-call

Enzo Maresca on the touchline. (Photo by George Wood/Getty Images)

Plenty will argue that the ref should at the very least have gone to look at it – but what can you do? He’s adjudged the shot to have been hit from too close in for the striker to do anything about it, and given the Dane is turning his body away and doesn’t do anything deliberate, you can see why it wasn’t checked.

The endless back and forth changing of the handball rules over the last 10 years (prompted in large part by the introduction of VAR) is really what’s causing this widespread confusion over what is and isn’t a foul.

You can see the incident in the clip embedded here:

Chelsea can’t make excuses over frustrating handball call

It’s no good moaning about chances that were missed and penalties that should have been given. We need to win this game, and we’ve known we have to win it for a while now.

You can argue all day along about whether that should have been given – the most important thing is that we still have 45 minutes to raise our game and win the 3 points we need.

At home against a team towards the bottom of the table with nothing to play for, that shouldn’t be too hard. But the first 45 weren’t good enough, and we’ll need to see a lot more from the team in the second period.