The official who was set to be the video assistant referee for Liverpool vs Arsenal has been removed after an error in Chelsea’s win over Fulham on Saturday.
There has been a late change to the officiating team for the big game on Sunday, with Michael Salisbury removed and replaced by John Brooks.
The switch comes after Salisbury intervened following Fulham’s Josh King believing he had opened the scoring at Stamford Bridge on Saturday.
The referee, Robert Jones, was told to look at the monitor and he eventually ruled the goal out due to a questionable foul by Rodrigo Muniz on Trevoh Chalobah in the build up.
The Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOL) have now admitted that Salisbury was wrong to intervene and he has been taken out of the firing line for Liverpool vs Arsenal as a result.
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Howard Webb, head of PGMOL, has contacted Fulham to admit the mistake by Salisbury, which could have cost them a result on Saturday.
Chelsea went on to win the match 2-0, with goals from Joao Pedro and Enzo Fernandez.
Fulham boss Marco Silva was fuming about the decision which ruled out King’s goal, what would have been a first for Fulham for the 18-year-old.
‘In the first half I saw my team playing outstanding football,’ said Silva. ‘Playing football – not trying to be fake, not parking the bus or something like that. All the decisions from the VAR and the referee made a massive impact on the game.
‘To disallow a goal like that is unbelievable. Unbelievable. We have all the meetings with the people in charge; we try to see their direction. One of the main things was: “VAR is not here to referee the game.”
‘I would prefer to say nothing more as I will be punished. I want to be on the bench for the next game, I don’t want to pay fines. But it has been difficult with so many decisions against us at the start of the season.’
Former Fulham and Liverpool midfielder Danny Murphy could not believe the goal was disallowed thanks to VAR.
‘These are experienced guys who have been doing it a long time now. They’ve got to do better, they have to do better,’ Murphy said on Match of the Day. ‘That’s one of the worst, that’s an easy decision to get right.
‘It’s really poor from them and I hope to god there’s an apology.’
King said of the incident: ‘Obviously it’s a difficult one to take, you’ve got that elation of scoring. It was an unbelievable feeling, to be honest. Then for it to get chalked off like that, it was a really hard one to take. We just had to try and bounce back and try to control the controlables in the game.
‘The way we celebrated, I definitely didn’t expect it and, to be honest, I did think it was a perfectly good goal, but obviously they must have seen it as a foul. Hopefully there will be more to come in the future.’