This is after the touch and Maddison clearly could still possess that ball and the defender is going to ground.

There is no absolute that a touch means no penalty. As we know from calls against the Spurs this year.

2 things should be considered
1. if it was a dangerous foul (it was not in this case)
2. if the player still had a scoring chance (he did in this case)

Zombie Jon Snow said:

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This is after the touch and Maddison clearly could still possess that ball and the defender is going to ground.

There is no absolute that a touch means no penalty. As we know from calls against the Spurs this year.

2 things should be considered
1. if it was a dangerous foul (it was not in this case)
2. if the player still had a scoring chance (he did in this case)

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This has been the bar all season in the EPL and Europe. If the defender manages a slight touch on the ball, no penalty. It is a poor interpretation but at least has been maddingly consistent.

Except as I mentioned Paulhina and Porro each had penalties this year when they touched the ball first.

Zombie Jon Snow said:

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BBallAggie06 said:

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Zombie Jon Snow said:

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UGH penalty.... just unnecessary really but also totally unintentional

bicycle kick defensively to try to clear and attacker throws his head in there. contact so it is a penalty.

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The slightest of touches there and it's a penalty, yet on the other side, the slightest of touch on the ball in the box but 95% body isn't a penalty. It's the rules I know, but goodness it just doesn't seem fair. Are Spurs the unluckiest of clubs in that regard? Sure seems like it. Not to mention we seldom get a penalty awarded. Cruel sport sometimes.

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So I did not think about one aspect at the time but I heard a lot of people who know football better than me discussing the non penalty on Leeds with the touch and tackle of Maddison.....

Several things make no sense or at least should be scrutinized there.

1. How the hell does the ref not make the penalty call to start with???? There is no way he saw that very slight touch that barely redirected the ball at all at full speed. The consensus is that VAR has made them less likely to call things like that the way they see them and let VAR figure it out. But that compounds the problem here. Because had he called the penalty it would have gotten a longer review to confirm the penalty.

Now here is why that is important.

2. Yes the defender apparently touched the ball barely - and the non call by the ref in real time meant that the VAR review was only looking to see if the ball was touched. It was so therefore no penalty.

BUT THIS IS THE CRUX

3. Even though he touched the ball it was barely a deflection and the defender in his tackling action was definitely taken out of the play himself. But he then of course took Maddison out. But that ball was still very much playable by Maddison after the deflection and there fore the tackle still could have/should have been a penalty because the deflection was not like it ended the potential for the player to score. He could have still gotten that ball and scored. And therefore that could have still been a penalty. In other words a better deflection would mean no penalty but that incidental touch did not end Maddisons chance to score.

So again this goes back to the ref not calling the penalty to begin with. If he calls the penalty as he should have and VAR looks at the action after the touch to see if he could have score they might have upheld a penalty called there.

This is sort of an innate VAR problem - the refs aren't calling penalties the way they used to because they don't want to be overruled. But in this case we know pre VAR that would have been a penalty 99.9% of the time. The fact that it wasn't called led the VAR to only look at if it was touched since the ref did not call a penalty. UGH.


I've now reversed my stance. Ref should have called it and VAR should have upheld it due to Maddison still being able to possess it after the touch and have a scoring chance.

In fact we have 2 penalties this season against Spurs in much the same situation. Both Palhinha and Porro were booked for penalties on tackles where they touched the ball first but the tackles were a little more egregious or "dangerous". I get that. But here you have a tackle after a touch where the player still could have scored if not tackled. Whether it was dangerous or not it stopped a scoring chance that had nothing to do with the deflection.

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Late game and he knows VAR can correct him if needed so he doesn't have to be the goat.

Toons!

One point and we stay up

Yep a tie and we are a lock. Otherwise we sweat out the last day and west ham have to win.