Gabriel Martinelli denied goal by VAR in Arsenal’s draw with Everton

Brazilian forward Gabriel Martinelli was denied his first goal of the season by a contentious VAR decision during Arsenal’s Premier League clash against Everton.

The 20-year-old thought he had opened the scoring in the 20th minute when he latched onto Fabio Vieira’s astute pass and curled the ball beyond Jordan Pickford with a laser precision finish.

Martinelli’s joy was short-lived, however, with VAR ruling out the goal having deemed Eddie Nketiah to have been standing in an offside position before he had laid the ball into Vieira’s path.

VAR Decision

The ball had found it’s way into Nketiah’s path having ricocheted, inadvertently, off the shin of Everton striker Beto who had been attempting to block a square pass from Gabriel Magalhaes.

According to PGMOL, the VAR deemed Beto’s touch had not been deliberate and therefore Nketiah, whose trailing leg was marginally beyond the last defender, was in an offside position.

Sky Sports presenter Kelly Cates said: ‘Gabriel plays the ball it was deflected off Beto PGMOL are saying this is not seen as a deliberate act so the play doesn’t reset so Eddie Nketiah is offside.’

Gary Neville’s View

Despite, to the letter of the law, the right decision having been arrived at, Gary Neville felt Arsenal had been hard done by.

‘Even I’m a little confused, he looked well behind,’ said the former Manchester United defender.

‘We saw one a few weeks ago where Erik ten Hag complained about not having the correct camera angle to have it in line.

‘That one looks a bit strange, shall we say. There looks to be a little bit of guess work with the blue line, I have to say.’

‘Sometimes you get a feeling a decision isn’t right and that one [Martinelli’s disallowed goal] didn’t feel right.’

Conclusion

VAR has been a contentious issue since its introduction into the Premier League and this latest incident will only add fuel to the fire. Despite the correct decision being made, it appears that Arsenal were hard done by and it will be interesting to see how VAR decisions are handled going forward.

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