Ex-Premier League official Peter Walton says West Ham forward Jarrod Bowen was fouled by Levi Colwill in the build-up to Chelsea’s equaliser last week.

Even so, speaking exclusively to Hammers Headlines (courtesy of talkSPORT BET), Walton claimed that VAR would not have been able to rule out the goal due to the definition of the “attacking phase of play”:

“I was on the working party that introduced VAR, and we looked at how far back do you go and somebody said ‘Well, when you win the ball.’ That was great until we realised that, at the time, teams had the ball for 5 minutes before it went in the net so we said we can’t go back that far. That was kiboshed and we said, ‘OK, what do we do now?’ It was when you win the ball or when you apply the pass that’s going to lead onto the goal almost immediately.”

“Whilst there’s not a time period attached to it, the “attacking phase of play” has been reduced considerably from when you win the ball to actually when you play that final pass so there’s a little bit of a misunderstanding about how far back you go in the attacking phase of play. For one thing, I think that needs more publicity based on this particular issue with Colwill. Was it a foul? I think it was a foul. There you go. I think it was a foul but, in terms of how far you go back, I think it was just too far back in the phase of play because the defending team had opportunities to cut the ball out, clear the ball, make a tackle. We need to get publicity about where the authorities think the attacking phase of play is, when that last attempt starts, that’s the attacking phase, not necessarily when you’ve won the ball back with a foul.”

You can’t re-officiate the whole game

Walton is basically saying that the time elapsed between the foul and the goal is not really the issue. It is all about when the incident occurred. Essentially, if Bowen was fouled right before the final ball that led to Pedro Neto’s equaliser, it would most likely have been ruled out.

Just like with offside, there has to be a clear demarcation line and it has been decided that, in these types of scenarios, you can’t go back to when the ball was won as too many things can happen between then and the goal being scored. The VAR is there to help officials, not to re-referee every single incident.

A poor decision cost West Ham

Chelsea were struggling to get a foothold in the second half when Graham Potter’s side were 1-0 up. Colwill’s challenge and Neto’s goal proved pivotal in turning the match on its head.

Rather than VAR being at fault, it was referee Stuart Attwell who should have spotted Bowen being taken out. As Walton says, it was a clear foul.

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