After watching his team finish on the wrong end of three penalty calls on Sunday, Thomas Frank spoke for football fans across the country. ‘I’m just so annoyed talking about VAR,’ said the Brentford boss.
His team’s failure to win at the City Ground after taking the lead and playing 47 minutes against 10 men will have contributed to Frank’s frustration.
Despite Moussa Niakhate’s red card early in the second half, Forest managed to equalise through Nicolas Dominguez after Christian Norgaard had put Brentford in front.
Frank accepted two marginal decisions — when the ball clipped the hands of Dominguez and Willy Boly in first-half stoppage time — going against Brentford.
Yet he was baffled that Forest goalkeeper Matt Turner was not penalised for lunging at Yoane Wissa after the Brentford forward had stolen the ball.
With the handball situations, some managers will say “penalty” but I won’t,’ said Frank. ‘I would really hate it if that is given against my team.
‘But on the flipside the Wissa one is a clear penalty. You can’t go through the man. Unfortunately that’s a mistake from VAR as it’s clear and obvious.
Maybe our players are too honest. Maybe they need to be more nasty, but I’ll never say that to them. I like honest players.’
Dominguez and Boly were not punished because their hands were deemed close enough to their sides, and Turner’s lunge at Wissa was checked and cleared.
However, it is evident that a system introduced to eliminate controversy has actually increased it, with this time Brentford feeling they had had a raw deal.
The controversy at Tottenham on Saturday, when Liverpool were denied a goal even though Luis Diaz was onside when he scored, meant VAR Darren England was replaced by Craig Pawson as fourth official for this match.
Michael Oliver was in the VAR chair and although there was no howler here, it is far from easy to understand why some decisions are reversed and others are not.
Forest have complained bitterly about officials this term but they had the rub of the green here, though boss Steve Cooper was unhappy with the second yellow card shown to Niakhate.
He said: ‘With it being the only Premier League game of the day, the last thing the PGMOL needed was people talking about referees’ decision-making. We all want referees to be at the level, they are going through a difficult time. If one or two things have gone our way, then it’s about time.
‘We all want referees to do well. My dad Keith was a referee. We want them to be calm and making good decisions but they need to help themselves too.’
Forest thought they had taken an early lead when Brazilian defender Murillo flicked on Callum Hudson-Odoi’s corner on his debut and Taiwo Awoniyi steered in at the far post, but the Nigerian forward was offside.
Brentford had the clearest chance of the half when Vitaly Janelt’s strike clipped Serge Aurier and was palmed back out by Turner, and Ibrahim Sangare made a crucial intervention.
