Premier League referees’ chief Howard Webb believes VAR was right not to intervene after Diogo Dalot’s challenge on Jeremy Doku during Manchester United’s 2-0 victory over Manchester City on Saturday.
Dalot was shown a yellow card in the 11th minute at Old Trafford after making contact with Doku’s knee during a challenge and VAR Craig Pawson backed Anthony Taylor’s on-field decision.
The decision sparked a debate on whether Dalot should have been given a red card and former Premier League referees Dermot Gallagher and Mike Dean both thought the defender should have been sent off.
However, Professional Game Match Officials’ boss Webb insists the challenge looks worse in slow motion and said Dalot only made glancing contact with Doku’s knee.
After seeing the event play out again, Webb told Match Officials Mic’d Up: “Is there excessive force? Some will say, yes. I’m not quite there, but I can see that there could be.
“It’s a subjective judgment. But, I’m absolutely aligned that once that decision is taken on the field, we leave it as referee’s call and we don’t intervene with the VAR.
“I think it’s one where the referee’s call should stand on the field. That’s what we’ve said we’ll do where there’s a mix of considerations.
“At full speed, when you play it in real time, you can see there’s not a great deal of speed in the action, not a lot of intensity.
“We were heavily criticised a few years ago for using slow motion and freeze frames because people said, this is not reality. It’s not how the game is played.
“When you slow it down, it can look a lot worse — and it does. When you freeze frame it, you can make a lot of situations look like red card offences.
“Yes, it could be red, but you have to think about the need to look at it at full speed.
“We’ve done that for some time now. We thought it was a fair criticism some time ago when people said, ‘Stop using slow-mos as the main way of analysing these situations.’ And we’ve listened, and we agree. And we play it at full speed. Then we slow it down a little bit to see the exact point of contact to factor that in as well.
“But without speed and force and intensity, it’s unlikely to be a red card.”
