Liam Keen slams costly VAR decision against Wolves

Liam Keen believes that Wolves should’ve been awarded a penalty after Raul Jimenez was taken to the ground.

The Lowdown: VAR at the centre of the Wolves storm

Despite only managing to register four shots on target in the entire game, Wolves and their fans will feel very aggrieved having come away from St James’ park with nothing to show for their efforts.

This is because they’ll believe Newcastle United should’ve been down to 10 men when Nick Pope appeared to lean his shoulder into Jimenez after he took a heavy touch and panicked with the Mexican striker knocking the ball past the huge shot-stopper.

While Andy Madley may be excused for not giving the spot kick given he was so far away from the incident and had a poor angle of it, his linesman or even the VAR team should’ve been able to make a decision on what had happened.

The Latest: Jimenez didn’t initiate the contact

Keen was speaking on The Express and Star YouTube channel about how it should’ve been a penalty and anyone claiming Jimenez initiated the contact was simply wrong.

He said: (2:20) “Jimenez does very well to anticipate it, put him under pressure and nick the ball off him and he is about to run through on goal, let’s not dress it up any more than that he’s about to go through have a tap in and put Wolves 1-0 up.

“Nick Pope leans in, catches him and tries to step out of the way. He goes in first, comes in and makes contact and some people are suggesting that Jimenez initiated the contact, not for me, not at all I think Jimenez is about to race through on goal and he’s clipped on his back from behind.

“It’s a stonewall penalty, it’s a red card because it wouldn’t be an intention of playing the ball, so by the latter of the law it’s a red card and it’s a penalty.”

The Verdict: Game-changing decision doesn’t go Wolves’ way

While Wolves certainly didn’t create anywhere near enough chances to win the game, especially compared to their opponents, the fact that VAR couldn’t see that their striker had been wiped out with the goal gaping is very poor.

Given that Wolves are still only three points above the bottom three, the last thing they needed was for VAR to not even be on their side, but to not be balanced and give a clear penalty decision when the score was 0-0.

What will have made it even worse for Wolves is that Nick Pope played a huge part in Newcastle leaving with all three points having pulled off impressive saves from Pedro Neto and Joao Moutinho in the second half.

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