Gabriel Martinelli’s goal against Manchester United would have put Arsenal ahead, but VAR stopped it. This put Gary Lineker and Jamie Carragher on different sides of the argument.
Gary Lineker and Jamie Carragher don’t agree about why Arsenal’s goal against Manchester United was controversially taken away.
Gabriel Martinelli thought he had scored the first goal in the 11th minute at Old Trafford, but United’s players surrounded referee Paul Tierney and asked him to call a foul. Martinelli’s celebrations didn’t last long. After a long VAR review, the Red Devils, who won 3-1, got what they wanted when it was decided that Martin Odegaard had brought down Christian Eriksen in the lead-up.
Odegaard, an Arsenal midfielder, pushed Eriksen to the ground without getting the ball. This started the counterattack, which Martinelli finished beautifully past David de Gea. After VAR official Lee Mason told Tierney to look over his first decision on the pitch-side monitor, he had to watch multiple replays of the incident.
After Martinelli’s first goal was called back, people were all over social media with their thoughts and hot takes. Lineker and Carragher didn’t stay out of the debate, and they were on opposite sides about whether or not VAR was needed.
Before the call was made, England’s best player, Gary Lineker, wasn’t happy about it. As Tierney went over to check his call, he wrote on Twitter, “Here we go again. “VAR is such a bore.”
Carragher, a Liverpool legend, was glad that VAR did its job and said that Tierney had made the right call. “VAR had a bad weekend, but it did its job in the first half when Eriksen was fouled,” the former Anfield regular wrote on Twitter. Alan Shearer, a famous player for Newcastle, didn’t agree. He tweeted, “What a load of crap. #var.”
At halftime, when he was working as a commentator for Sky Sports, former United captain Roy Keane said, “Yeah, it’s soft. Odegaard doesn’t touch the ball, which helps United. We used to play in a different time, when getting touched wasn’t a foul, but now it is.
“They’re all doing it. Sometimes in the game, players stay down when they’re touched, which I don’t like to see. But the way the games are going, it is a foul.”
Gary Neville didn’t think Odegaard had done anything wrong when he was talking about the game. The former Red Devils right back said, “Well, there are complaints, but I thought Eriksen was pretty dispossessed.” “I don’t think he could see the Manchester United player who came and took it from him. It’s Odegaard, he just steals it – there’s a little nudge – but it’s something from nothing.”
