VAR overturned Hakim Ziyech’s red card following an utterly bizarre incident against Tottenham
After a dour first half, Spurs game against Chelsea burst into life following a foul by Hakim Ziyech on Richarlison. This sparked a melee and some contentious use of VAR.
Ziyech brought down Richarlison with a poor challenge before a melee started. The Brazilian reacted by pushing the Chelsea winger. Initially, Ziyech appeared to avoid any punishment with referee Stuart Attwell showing yellow cards to Kai Haverts and Emerson Royal for their involvement in the pushing and shoving.
Attwell spoke to his assistant, Darren Cann, on the touchline before making decisions. However, after hearing from VAR, Attwell showed a straight red card to Ziyech who had clearly put his hand into Royal’s face. This was an incident that Attwell appeared to have missed the first time.
Ziyech walked to the touchline resigned to his fate before stopping as a VAR check came up on the big screens. Attwell was summoned over to the monitor. After seeing a few replayes, he rescinded the red card in favor of the yellow.
This decision didn’t go well with the Tottenham fans and coaching staff. At half time, Harry Kane was seen in conversation with Attwell as the teams went in at 0-0.
Moreover, this decision was received differently by Floyd Hasselbaink who said, “well done to the referee. I think it’s the right decision”.
“He wanted to push him away in the shoulder and then slipped to his face. Common sense from the referee. But on the other hand, a very lucky decision”.
On the other hand, former Arsenal striker Alan Smith was confused by the decision process. But later on, he believed the correct one was reached in the end.
He said, “he has already made the decision. So why has he gone to the monitor? And now, he has withdraw it. So I think it is the right decision to the end”.
In the second half, Sterling had a penalty appeal rejected after going down in the box after a challenge from Oliver Skipp. Minutes later, Cristian Romero went down holding his face following an apparent elbow by Thiago Silva. Silave was later forced off injured after Kane landed on him in the box.
Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg came closest to breaking the deadlock when he struck the inside of the post via a deflection off Wesley Fofana.