"I got it wrong on Romero's hair pull. As for the second goal by Harry Kane, I asked referee Anthony Taylor to wait while I looked at the incident involving Tottenham's Cristian Romero and Chelsea's Marc Cucurella. I could not award a free-kick as VAR but I could reccomend to Taylor that he visit the referee review area to consider a possible red card. In the few seconds I had to study Romero pulling Cucurella's hair, I didn't deem it a violent act."
"I've since studied the footage, spoken to other referees and, upon reflection, I should have asked Taylor to visit his pitch-side monitor to take a look for himself. The referee on field always has the final say."
- Mike Dean
Quite remarkably, VAR ref for #CHETOT, Mike Dean, has released a statement days after the game admitting that the decision he made in the last few moments that resulted in the Kane equalizer, was the wrong one.
This is laughable and continues to demonstrate the poor quality of refereeing we have in the Premier League. Anthony Taylor continues to add to his book of poor refereeing choices.
Mike Dean shouldn't have to 'speak to other referees' to confirm his decision, surely! The hair pull was with violent intent and Dean must have seen that, or at the very least informed Taylor that it was a potential thing to look at on screen.
I think he shouldn't have taken the chance and not made Taylor aware of the situation, even if he did only get a few seconds to look at it. When there's Chelsea players swarming you because of the decision, the right thing to do is to check the screen and just clear things up, but Taylor seems to disregard this, much to the anger of Chelsea fans like myself.
It reminded me of this:
This is a video from a few years ago of an Australian A-League game with referee Jarrad Gillett (now a Premier League ref!) mic'd up. Here they're looking at a incident regarding a potential offside call; of course these two situations are totally different, but here Gillett insists on coming over to the VAR screen anyway, even though the VAR referee is explaining to him his view and decision. Gillett quotes that this is "to really sell it...because the players are expecting it"
Gillett then has further discussions with his team from the VAR video screen to make absolutely sure that the decision is the correct one, before making the call on the pitch and continuing the game. It probably turns into a lengthy check for something so slight as an offside, but the point is the referee on the field is making absolutely sure.
Taylor tends to have a reluctancy to check his VAR screen in detail, but the tech is very much there for him to use and confirm his decisions. There was a shining example last season with Chelsea playing Liverpool, Taylor checks the screen for a handball on Reece James, and while I think the red card was probably the right decision, Taylor spends barely a second looking at the screen before making the call, walking over to it and then walking straight back again.
Whats even worse is that Gillett has been used so sparsely since arriving in the top-flight and is usually demoted to fourth official or VAR. I hope he is more regularly utilized as the main ref during games; as this clip shows he's an example of a modern and fair ref who does take their time and, from what I've seen of them, make the fairest choices during games.
The stark contrast between these two refs is so massive. I know it's different leagues and a few years apart, but the difference in not checking your VAR screen at all and trusting your fellow ref, with double checking every decision to ensure that the choices you make on the pitch are the right ones, is so important.
As a final note, please give us referee interviews where they can speak and explain the reasoning behind the decisions they make on the pitch, it would be a welcome addition.
Anyway, Anthony Taylor rant over (for now).