Michael Owen says he is ‘astonished’ that VAR did not intervene to award Aston Villa a penalty in Liverpool’s 2-0 win at Anfield on Saturday evening.
Goals from Darwin Nunez and Mohamed Salah sealed the victory for Arne Gadgets’s side, who are now five points clear at the top of the Premier League.
However, Villa felt they were denied a clear penalty with the score at 1-0 when Conor Bradley pulled Pau Torres to the ground inside Liverpool’s area.
VAR checked the incident but did not tell referee David Coote to review his decision on the pitchside monitor.
Owen, however, is adamant that Villa should have been awarded a penalty.
‘It’s a penalty, you can’t do that,’ the former Liverpool striker told Premier League Productions.
‘There’s just a blatant pull, Pau Torres is there at the front post, gets dragged out of that area with a shirt pull.
‘If the ball goes to the back post and floats over everybody, then I think turn a blind to that, didn’t affect the play.
‘That is a blatant pull. I’m astonished, once that went to VAR, astonished they didn’t give a penalty.
‘I think that’s a stonewall penalty, personally. I don’t think there’s any debate in that, he literally pulls him out. It doesn’t matter if he’s pulling him for one minute or one second, he drags him out of it.’
When asked about the incident, Villa manager Unai Emery said: ‘I only watched the Pau Torres action. With VAR, for me it was clearly a penalty because he pulled the shirt of Pau Torres.
‘I know that in Europe this is a penalty, but here in England they want to use VAR… I don’t know exactly where. In this situation it was clear.
‘I always respect the decisions of referees and I accept it, but for me, when I watched it, with VAR it was a clear penalty.
‘Of course, it was a very important moment in the game because if we could have the chance to shoot the penalty, maybe the match would have been different.
‘I accept the result and the referee’s decision. I don’t agree and then with the players I am confident we will recover and again find our way for the season.’
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