Nottingham Forest were left furious as a potential winner against Tottenham was controversially ruled out by VAR for a handball on Neco Williams.
The 0-0 draw at the City Ground left both sides without a win in the Premier League this season but Forest were close to taking all three points.
The incident came halfway through the second half after Morgan Gibbs-White was slipped through on goal and looked to dink his finish over the goalkepeer.
Gibbs-White’s goal-bound chip could have been cleared fairly easily by Sandro Tonali but the Spurs midfielder missed his kick as the ball bounced towards the line.
Sensing a chance to bundle the ball over the line, Williams followed in and threw his head at the ball – but then covered his face with his hands as Tonali raised his boot to clear, catching the Forest player.
Williams crashed into the ball and forced it over the line despite Tonali’s attempted clearance, only for on-field referee Craig Pawson to be told by VAR Peter Bankes that a check for handball was underway.
Bankes ruled that Williams made contact with the ball with his arm as he covered his face, resulting in the goal being disallowed and a free-kick being awarded to Tottenham.
The Premier League’s Match Centre confirmed: “VAR checked the referee’s call of goal to Nottingham Forest – and determined that Williams handled the ball immediately before scoring and recommended that the goal was disallowed.”
Referee Pawson announced the decision to the City Ground, explaining: “After review, the ball touches the hand of Nottingham Forest No.3 [Williams] before the goal is scored. The final decision is a direct free-kick for Spurs”.
Williams disagreed with that assessment, however, telling Sky Sports that the ball did not hit his hand. “It’s a goal,” he said.
“VAR is there for when there’s a clear and obvious error, and for me, that’s not clear and obvious. I’ve seen the images back and not one moment I thought I handballed it.
“I headed it in between my arms. If you pause it, it’s going to look like it hit my arm, but it didn’t hit my arm. I think a lot of decisions didn’t go our way today. But this is football.”
Nottingham Forest boss Oliver Glasner, meanwhile, accused VAR of “guessing” during the decision to disallow Williams’ goal.
Glasner pointed to a pre-season directive for a higher threshold for VAR interventions and said, “the referee allowed the goal and I watched it back, I told my analyst to show me all the angles.
“I watched five or six different angles and to be fair, from one angle you can guess that the ball touched the arm because the shirt moves a little bit, but it’s not clear if it’s the ball or Tonali on the goalline.
“I think the VAR can’t intervene when he is guessing. It was not clear and obvious.”
