Newcastle United defeated Arsenal 1-0 at home thanks to a questionable Anthony Gordon goal.
Arsenal fans will feel duped tonight, while Newcastle fans will be ecstatic that, despite VAR’s effort, they couldn’t find a reason to rule out Anthony Gordon’s goal.
If it hadn’t been for Gordon’s 64th-minute goal, referee Stewart Atwell and his VAR team would have dominated the headlines.
In the first half, Kai Havertz could and should have seen red.
After a terrible first-half challenge on Sean Longstaff that was assessed as wreckless rather than dangerous by VAR, Arsenal’s Kai Havertz was lucky to be on the field. Following that bad decision, Atwell went card crazy, issuing three yellow cards to Newcastle players for protesting.
Bruno Guimaraes also benefited from stunning refereeing and VAR mistakes, as he ran past Jorginho and dealt him a glancing elbow to the back of the head. VAR looked into it, but nothing was supplied. Bruno had lost his mind by the conclusion of the first half and was lucky to be on the field at all. Bruno was booked in the second half, and Arsenal fans are right to wonder how he made it through 90 minutes.
Eddie Howe made a pair of substitutions, removing Callum Wilson and inserting Anthony Gordon into the middle. Anthony Gordon put the ball in the back of the net about a minute later.
VAR took four minutes to award Gordon’s goal, much to Shearer’s chagrin.
They looked to see if the ball went out of play before it was crossed in, if Joelinton had committed a foul in the build-up, and then they looked for Gordon to be offside. VAR ruled that they lacked sufficient angles to make a clear decision, hence the goal was granted.
Alan Shearer was in a rage on X. During the Kai Havertz incident, he wrote on Twitter, “Well done ref. “You are the man.” Alan, I love your sarcasm. He went on to criticize the absurd amount of time it took to award the goal.
Newcastle held on to their lead and handed Arsenal their first Premier League defeat of the season.
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