But Willian cannot have been a clear and obvious mistake, otherwise the VAR would have been involved...? Graham Scott made the call seeing it once, in real time - and the post-match arguments for it being incorrect for me don't outweigh the arguments for it being the right decision, and that's with multiple replays.I agree with almost all his decisions. But to clarify, i thought it was a superb performance on the night. The one that i slightly disagree with is the Willian YC. To me the clips were not conclusive 100% as the Pedro and Morata ones, there is contact with the defender's foot, now we can debate whether it was Willian who was seeking such contact and left his leg hanging... But again it wasn't 100% clear (to me at least).
Seemed to me a moment of realisation from the defender that no I cant do that here and now. Morata has felt the touch and gone for it and it ended up being some quick, smart thinking from the defender in the end.I'm not having the morata one @santa sangria, that's a dive, all day. There's an arm on his shoulder, sure, is it enough to send him to the ground like that? absolutely not. In fact the defender removes his hand from Morata's shoulder before he drops to the ground. A very minor/trifling bit of contact imo, wouldn't go as far as labeling it a pull.
The way Willian went down left no choice for GS but to stop play. A free kick had to be given there one way or other. Willian left his leg ganging out there and in fact it looked like he was going down before contact was made. The tackle form the defender didn't look good either so I can see the case for a penalty too but I wouldn't give a pen for that. And it was not a clear error so VAR couldn't suggest a review either. The other two were nailed on dives.
On the VAR, if the Willian decision was to be reviewed, it could have only been to see if it was a pen, not for if it was a dive. yellow card decisions can't be reviews.
Also the ARs still haven't learned to delay an offside flag for a imminent goal opportunity. Three was another close offside call flagged immediately in this game which preceded a 1on1 with the keeper. There was no goal. The offside call turned out to be wrong on replay. There would have been problems if a goal was scored.
..... If fouls are now going to be decided on how an attacker reacts to contact that's going to be interesting.