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Manchester City should have had a penalty for Trent Alexander-Arnold handball and the error illustrates VAR is not working

The ball hits Trent Alexander-Arnold on the arm but the referee, Micheal Oliver, did not point to the spot and VAR didn't come to the rescue of Manchester City  - REUTERS
The ball hits Trent Alexander-Arnold on the arm but the referee, Micheal Oliver, did not point to the spot and VAR didn't come to the rescue of Manchester City - REUTERS

I can understand Pep Guardiola feeling hard done by because his Manchester City side should have been awarded a penalty for Trent Alexander-Arnold’s handball just six minutes into the match at Anfield.

In my opinion it is exactly the sort of clear and obvious error that VAR was introduced to deal with, and City should have had a spot kick. The error was made particularly painful by the fact Liverpool had gone straight up the other end and scored, and so it is not hard to see why Guardiola was so irate.

I felt that Alexander-Arnold’s arm was away from his body, and his intervention prevented the ball from reaching a City player at the back post - making it a clear handball. In contrast, the penalty shout at the end against the same player was correctly not given because Alexander-Arnold’s arm was by his side and he had no time to react as it was hit straight at him from close range.

I have seen suggestions that because the ball hit Bernardo Silva’s hand before striking Alexander-Arnold the officials would not have been able to award City a penalty. Crucially, the Premier League insisted a spot kick was not awarded because Alexander-Arnold’s hand was not in an unnatural position, rather than because of Silva’s role in the incident. Taking them at face value I believe they have made the wrong call, although the fact there is so much conjecture on this point also serves to show what a mess we are in over the handball law.

You could say the same for how VAR is dealing with offsides, too. To the naked eye Mohamed Salah looked like he may well have been offside before heading in Liverpool’s second. VAR disagreed and the goal was correctly given.

Nothing to see here, you might think. But I fear we are now at a stage where we don’t trust the technology and the images we are seeing. Is the line straight? Are the cameras of sufficient quality and in the right positions to make these calls with definitive proof? I’m not sure they are, and we will have more situations like that farcical decision to disallow Sheffield United’s goal at Tottenham on Saturday. You see wags on social media doctor the same image with different lines across the pitch and it’s hard to tell which one is real and which is fake. We are investing a lot of trust in technology that seems far from foolproof.

Frankly, it is a little boring to be talking about the same issues week after week. Clearly VAR is not working in the manner in which it is currently being used. We are making our top officials, such as Michael Oliver - who I must say had another impressive game on Sunday - look foolish. It is so frustrating for everyone involved.