VAR Paul Howard has to take the emotion out of any check, and it didn't take long for him to recommend an on-field review for a possible red card for serious foul play. The replays clearly made Howard feel uncomfortable with a yellow card. His rationale over the comms to referee Bankes described the challenge was made with speed, intensity and contact was high up on the shin, clearly endangering the safety of his opponent.
Serie A's referee designator Gianluca Rocchi said match official Federico La Penna was clearly wrong in showing Juventus defender Pierre Kalulu a second yellow card during Saturday's loss at Inter, and apologised over the incident. Kalulu was sent off after Inter's Alessandro Bastoni tumbled to the ground and immediately gestured towards the referee demanding a card, indicating that Kalulu had grabbed his shirt to bring him down. Television footage suggested there was no contact between the players.
What happened: Manchester United defender Diogo Dalot was late with a challenge on Jérémy Doku, catching the Manchester City attacker high on the knee. The on-field decision from referee Anthony Taylor was a yellow card, confirmed by VAR Craig Pawson. VAR decision: The referee's call of yellow card to Dalot for a reckless challenge was checked and confirmed by VAR -- with the contact deemed to be glancing and not with excessive force.
The characteristics of a reckless challenge, originally identified by the on-field referee, were not evident in the footage presented to the VAR team when reviewing the incident. Attwell, would have been very uncomfortable with Simons action, feeling the contact on the back of Van Dijk's calf, with a level of force and speed, endangered the safety of his opponent and met the threshold for a possible red card.
