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Southampton, who are rock bottom in the Premier League standings, were denied a massive victory against Brighton after a controversial VAR call didn’t go their way at the Amex Stadium on Friday night, November 29. After a humdinger of a contest which saw not too many clear cut chances, Southampton had to settle for a 1-1 against Brighton, who have climbed ahead of Manchester City into second place in the Premier League points table by virtue of defeating them earlier this month.
In the first half, Kaoru Mitoma put Brighton in the lead in the 29th minute with a spectacular header, which was his third goal of the Premier League season. Southampton equalised in the second half when Flynn Downes smashed home the ball in the back of the net in the 59th minute, following which the visitors were looking poised to take the lead with the better of the attacks as the night progressed.
You either have VAR to correct problems or not - and when it's a goal it's a big problem: Russell Martin
Just a few minutes after their second goal, Cameron Archer put the ball in the back of the net from a cross delivered by Ryan Fraser, who had just come off the bench. But then, a VAR check, which lasted more than four minutes, deemed that while Cameron Archer was on-side, it penalised Adam Armstrong, who didn’t touch the ball but ended up interfering with goal-keepr Bart Verbruggen in a off-side position, which meant that the potential winner for Southampton versus Brighton didn’t stand.
In the post-match chat, Southampton manager Russell Martin was quite disappointed with the VAR call and said, “My problem is that the on-field decision carries weight. You either have VAR to correct problems or not - and when it's a goal it's a big problem. If a decision is made in the heat of the moment you can accept it, but when you have so much time and we have to wait on the side of the pitch for so long and the decision is still, in my opinion, that the goalkeeper has been affected when he's not - that's a problem. I understand why they would give it in the heat of the moment but that's why VAR is there.”
