Tuesday night saw a huge game between London rivals Tottenham & Chelsea at Wembley Stadium. It's the second time that they've met in just over a month but the stakes were high this time, with this encounter the first leg of their League Cup semi-final. The winner on aggregate would go on to play again at the national stadium on 24th February - so it was a very important match. It ended up being a pretty tight game with little in it for both sides - ultimately being decided by a solitary goal. It came from the penalty spot via the right foot of Spurs & England skipper Harry Kane but the controversy leading up to it has made all the headlines.
Originally the linesman flagged Kane as he burst the offside trap but he played on where he was brought down by Chelsea keeper Kepa Arrizabalaga - which originally looked like the right call. There was contact between the Spurs forward and the Chelsea no.1 but Kane looked like he exaggerated it slightly, with his fall very theatrical and getting plenty of recognition on Twitter - but it was deemed enough to award the penalty and book Arrizabalaga.
But the main controversy came surrounding the decision which claimed that Kane was onside. VAR over-ruled the linesman who originally flagged the forward as offside and even looking at the replays it's incredibly difficult to see whether he was or not. Different angles tell a different story and the decision to award the penalty brought an expectedly angry response from Chelsea boss Maurizio Sarri - who came out to his post match interview with his laptop which appears to prove Kane was indeed offside.
Sarri angrily claimed the VAR is not yet ready for English referees and the events on the pitch do back that up, but with it becoming part of the Premier League next season it's something that we need to embrace very soon. However, last nights scenes show there's still a long way to go as Raphael Honigstein explains on twitter (see below). Should Kane's goal have stood last night? Get involved in the debate @FootyAccums!
Point of VAR is to help referees make better decisions. Using an angle that's actually worse than the assistant's - who got it right first time - to then overrule him is really not the way to do it. Sarri right to feel aggrieved.
— Raphael Honigsteinđ (@honigstein) January 8, 2019
