Ian Wright left ‘confused’ and ‘BEWILDERED’ after another day of Premier League VAR controversy

Ian Wright says he has been left ‘confused’ and ‘bewildered’ after another day of Premier League VAR controversy. 

Arsenal, Brighton and Chelsea were all left to feel aggrieved in each of their respective 1-1 draws with errors seemingly denying them each victory. 

The league leaders Arsenal had taken the lead against Brentford before they were pegged back by an Ivan Toney goal. It was revealed by Sportsmail after the final whistle that Lee Mason on VAR had forgotten to put the lines down – had he done so, the goal would have been ruled out. 

Brighton meanwhile were also undone by a controversial offside decision, with Pervis Estupinan seeing his first half strike at Crystal Palace wrongly ruled out for offside in another case of line failure, with the wrong defender being used as the point from which they were drawn. 

While Chelsea felt they should have had a late penalty at West Ham after Conor Gallagher’s shot was blocked by Tomas Soucek with his hand. 

VAR Lee Mason forgot to draw offside lines when assessing Ivan Toney’s goal for Brentford 

On Sunday, pundit Wright spoke out against the errors – questioning what the ‘consequences’ might be for each side and their respective ambitions this season. 

‘Yesterday man. I can’t believe it… I cannot believe what I saw yesterday. What are the consequences for Brighton who are trying to get into Europe?

‘What are the consequences for someone like Graham Potter? Finally we saw a Chelsea team doing some stuff in the first half an hour and I’m thinking, “yes, Graham Potter, you’re starting to get it”.

Ian Wright said he was ‘confused and bewildered’ by the decisions in all three fixtures 

Pervis Estpuninan saw his first half effort chalked off – wrongly it later emerged thanks to ‘human error’

Brighton revealed that the PGMOL had apologised for the error in ruling out Estupinan’s goal

‘What are the consequences for Arsenal, man? Trying to put a title run together, man, what are the consequences? Best league in the world they say, that’s what we say, “oh, best league in the world”‘. 

‘Them mistakes,’ he added. ‘What’s going to happen from PGMOL, someone’s going to get what? We’re going to get an apology, they’re going to get a suspension… a break disguised as a suspension. 

‘You can’t blame the technology. In two cases they drew the lines in the wrong place! The wrong r******* place!’

Tomas Soucek blocked Conor Gallagher’s shot with his hand – but it was not given as a penalty

Wright’s speaking out against the errors comes amid acceptance from the refereeing body that ‘human errors’ had led to the mistakes. 

In the case of Arsenal, Mason on VAR had focused in on the first potential offside offence and did not properly look at Christian Norgaard’s positioning when he crossed for Ivan Toney to head in.  

‘I just looked back and it is offside,’ said Mikel Arteta. ‘They will probably give an explanation later in the week but today we have not got one.

‘You have to apply certain principles in defending and you do that by sticking to the rules. Suddenly you change the rules, and then you have to change your principles.’

On Estupinan’s disallowed opener, Brighton revealed in a statement that they had received an apology from the PGMOL – adding that they had accepted it and would not be commenting further. 

‘As was confirmed to the club by PGMOL last night, a serious error was made in disallowing Pervis Estupinan’s goal at Crystal Palace yesterday afternoon,’ the club said.

Mikel Arteta felt the goal should have been disallowed for Ethan Pinnock blocking off Gabriel

‘The lines drawn in the VAR room to determine whether Pervis was in an offside position were drawn incorrectly, and the goal should have stood.

‘While hugely disappointed by the error, the club has accepted PGMOL’s apology and will not be making any further comment.’

Potter, meanwhile, joked after the game that Soucek had made a ‘good save’. 

‘I thought it was a good save,’ Potter said. ‘You need your goalkeeper sometimes to get you the points. It hasn’t been given so there’s nothing for me to say.

‘I’ve only seen it briefly as I walked across. It’s one of those ones that if it had been given, it wouldn’t have been overturned but it hasn’t been given so I don’t know.

‘It looked quite a handball to me. Again, like I said, I didn’t know Tomas could get down that easily and save like that, it’s a good stop from him. It’s not for me to say about VAR.’