Gary Neville was left confused by Arsenal’s offside goal against Everton today.
Speaking on Sky Sports, the former defender admitted the decision to chalk off Gabriel Martinelli’s opener was ‘a little bit strange’.
Arsenal were looking to put an end to Everton’s five-game unbeaten run against them at Goodison Park and the Toffees already looked to have been broken down inside 20 minutes when Martinelli tucked the ball away.
Everton were handed a lifeline though, with VAR quickly overturning the goal as Eddie Nketiah was offside.
However, there was a lot of confusion around the decision as Gabriel’s initial ball was blocked by Beto and then bounced into the path of Nketiah. To make matters more confusing, VAR went onto show their offside lines from a rather unusual angle.
Supporters weren’t the only ones confused by the event, with Neville saying: “That one looked a little bit strange. It came off the Everton player. Sometimes you just get a feeling that a decision isn’t right and that one didn’t feel right.”
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Arsenal fans criticised the decision to disallow the goal as Beto stuck his leg out to prevent Gabriel from playing a forward pass and in doing so, the ball landed at Nketiah’s feet. However, the rule states that the Everton striker had to have *deliberately* played the ball for Nketiah to not be considered offside.
The referee was correct to disallow Arsenal’s offside opener
While extremely confusing in this instance, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink insisted at half-time that the decision was the correct one.
“We all see what he’s trying to do, he’s trying to block the pass,” Hasselbaink said. “He doesn’t want the ball to go in that direction and that’s why, for me, it’s offside.”
Arsenal were infuriated by Martinelli’s disallowed goal but it was a huge let-off for Everton and Beto, though they certainly didn’t take advantage of it in the remaining hour of football.