The penalty decision last night (which I've only just seen) reminds me of every dumb decision we've seen over the years, beginning with the one given against Micah in the league cup at Anfield, through the fouls on David Silva and Micah (again!) in Munich and countless others. These were before the days of VAR, before the days of immediate reaction and I don't know whether the refs in those were fit to ref a world cup and a CL final but the ref last night dropped a real clanger. Of three conditions to be met to award a penalty he thought one had been met - the hand was in an "unnatural" position when he saw the replay! He considered that this nullified the fact that the contact with the hand was not deliberate or that the player was too close to get out of the way! In other words - "I'm under such pressure that I'll let someone get away with something that I'd better penalise ball to hand, like they did with Jack Grealish in the FA cup final. I can't tell my VAR colleague not to be so bloody stupid. After all he's UEFA's spy in the cab. And when you think of the two clubs involved ... One well in with UEFA... the other rich..."
The geordies must be furious and with every reason. They're being cheated just as we were for so long.
